Philosopher:
courts shy
from meddling
with campuses
DENVER Courts apparently aren't
meddling in the internal workings of the
nation's colleges and universities except to
protect constitutionally guaranteed
freedoms, according to author and
philosopher John S. Brubacher.
Brubacher addressed participants last
weekend at a conference on the campus and
the law held at the University of Denver.
A former teacher at Harvard and Yale,
Brubacher said courts generally have decided
to leave solutions to campus problems to
university officials.
Case after case, Brubacher said, shows the
court's reluctance to undermine the
authority of administrators and regents.
The Circuit Court of Appeals recently
affirmed the right of the University of
Nebraska Board of Regents to fire former
UNL professor Stephen Rozman because of
his role in May 1970 campus anti-war
activities.
Court decisions, Brubacher said, have
reflected the opinion that institutions of
higher education should remain independent
o1 political pressure.
Court judges want to avoid putting
themselves in the position of running a
university by their decisions, he said.
At the same time, Brubacher noted that
"the courts have had to relax their judicial
restraint ... in campus controversies
involving the federal bill of rights."
He said those decisions have revolved
mainly around guarantees of due process and
freedom of speech and the press.
Brubacher cited one administrative ruling
that was after an Alabama student was
summarily dismissed without a hearing. In
another situation at Wisconsin University,
students deemed guilty of "misconduct" had
to be reinstated becaUse the courts
determined that misconduct was too broad
of a violation.
In two cases involving campus
newspapers, the courts repulsed attempts to
indiscriminately censor material before
publication and have forced one university
to readmit a student editor who had been
expelled because of unpopular comment on
various state legislators.
Brubacher also noted that the Supreme
Court had vigorously supported academic
freedom in the classroom.
He cited one case where legislators had
asked administrators to ferret out what they
called subversives on trje faculty.
But the court upheld the academic rights
of a professor who had made statements
about socialism in his lectures.
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page 3
friday, oCtober 27, 1972
