RISING CHALLENGES TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND RESPECT FOR IDEOLOGICAL DIVERSITY IN AMERICA ’ S LAW SCHOOLS
MICHAEL S . MCGINNISS Dean , University of North Dakota School of Law
In the May 2021 announcement of my decision to return to faculty after one threeyear term as permanent Dean of the UND School of Law , I underscored the paramount importance of robust protection for freedom of speech and free exercise of religion among our nation ’ s lawyers , law professors , and law students . These principles of freedom , as well as the vital yet presently undervalued role of ideological diversity in legal education , have been fundamental in my deanship philosophy and topics I have explored in academic scholarship . See Expressing Conscience with Candor : Saint Thomas More and First Freedoms in the Legal Profession , 42 HARV . J . L . & PUB . POL ’ Y 173 ( 2019 ); A Tribute to Justice Antonin Scalia , 92 N . D . L . REV . 1 , 15-18 ( 2016 ) ( linked at https :// und . edu / directory / michael . mcginniss ); see also Keith E . Whittington , The Value of Ideological Diversity among University Faculty , 37 SOC . PHIL . & POL ’ Y 90 ( 2021 ), https :// scholar . princeton . edu / sites / default / files / the _ value _ of _ ideological _ diversity _ among _ university _ faculty _ draft . pdf . Reflecting their primacy and my significant concerns about their growing impact on legal education and its future , I included comments on these topics in my Law School Luncheon Address at the June 2021 SBAND Annual Meeting , and in my Dean ’ s Column in the Summer 2021
26 THE GAVEL issue of The Gavel . In both , I emphasized that “[ t ] o create and sustain a flourishing , genuinely inclusive , and truly equitable and just academic community , it is essential that sound and ideologically even-handed principles of academic freedom are not only clearly declared as foundational concepts , but also are respected in reality and upheld in practice at UND and the School of Law .”
In the months thereafter , there have been additional troubling incidents involving our nation ’ s college and universities and law schools and their handling of challenges to student and faculty speech . One studentrelated incident receiving substantial media coverage occurred at Yale Law School and concerned the administration ’ s adverse treatment of students in the Federalist Society and Native American Law Students Association in response to complaints from fellow students about an advertisement for a co-hosted social gathering . See , e . g ., Aaron Sibarium , Yale Law Dean Admits Error , Stops Short of Apologizing to Targeted Students , WASH . FREE BEACON ( Nov . 21 , 2021 ), https :// freebeacon . com / campus / yale-law-dean-admits-error-stops-short-ofapologizing-to-targeted-students . Although this incident provoked much more publicity than others , Yale Law School is far from unique among law schools in having a campus culture where socially conservative faculty , staff , and students may feel reluctant to express viewpoints that dissent from those of most faculty and administration and many students on controversial matters involving race and gender ideology , abortion and sexual ethics , or religious beliefs and exercise . In recent years , a vicious “ cancel culture ” that seeks to silence or demand reprisals of various kinds against those with whom one disagrees has chillingly been infecting the American legal academy . See , e . g ., McGinniss , Expressing Conscience with Candor , supra , at 243-45 ; Jonathan Turley , The rise of a generation of censors : Law schools the latest battlement over free speech , THE HILL ( July 6 , 2021 ), https :// thehill . com / opinion / judiciary / 561632-rise-of-generationof-censors-law-schools-latest-battlement-freespeech .
As Dean of the UND School of Law in the coming months , and as a member of our faculty in the years ahead , I will continue to stand firmly against any attempts to impose ideological conformity , including through restraints on free expression and through compelled or intimidated speech or the pressuring of dissenters into silence , both in the legal academy and in the legal profession as a whole . See McGinniss , supra , Expressing Conscience with Candor . But even where vocal , dedicated leadership on these principles exists , and sound affirmative policies and strong legal backstops for constitutional protections are adopted ( e . g ., the campus free speech provisions of North Dakota House Bill 1503 that became law in 2021 ), conservative members of campus communities may continue to