Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines closely the development of protection for freedom of academic thought and speech over the past seventy-five years. It explores how the professoriat, without protection for academic speech during the late 1800s as the modem university emerged, created a safe harbor termed here professional academic freedom. The book explores how the First Amendment doctrine of constitutional academic freedom protects the university and individual scholars from interference by federal, state, and local government. It analyzes how the First Amendment protects the freedom of speech of professors employed by public universities. The book focuses on the prudential doctrine of academic abstention in judicial review of academic decisions, the thrust of which is to protect academic decisions from undue interference by the courts themselves.