Only if Tulane's entanglement with the state increases dramatically would it qualify as a state actor. If the legal interpretation given to the state action requirement becomes more expansive, it is possible that a court in the future could find Tulane University subject to the proscriptions of the First Amendment. As noted above, however, the interpretive trend is running in the other direction at present. In the unlikely event that Tulane University were found to be a state actor equivalent to a public university, the protections afforded by the First Amendment might be inadequate to protect academic freedom. It might at some point be useful to determine whether, in the unlikely event that Tulane University were found to be a state actor, the protections afforded to its professors would be as effective in protecting academic freedom as tenure and the university procedures that accompany it.
Preliminary research suggests otherwise.
The Supreme Court has used the First Amendment to defeat governmental efforts to control the content of university speech. During the Cold War, the associational rights protected by the First Amendment prevented the dismissal of public university teachers for membership in the Communist Party in Keyishian v. Board of Regents . The language suggests that the scope of the protection may shrink considerably in the absence of self-imposed institutional controls. An additional disadvantage of reliance on the First Amendment to protect academic freedom is that it turns over a function central to the University's mission to non-academics. The courts may attribute values and purposes to the University that are inconsistent with academic purposes and values, and set the parameters of First Amendment protection of academic freedom accordingly.