They include distributing leaflets outside the meeting room, picketing peacefully, boycotting the speech, walking out, asking pointed questions, and, within limits set by the moderator, expressing displeasure with evasive answers. Those who oppose a speaker may thus make their views known, so long as they do not thereby interfere with the speaker's ability to be heard or the right of others to listen. The American conception of academic freedom includes the principle that professors may participate in political demonstrations and speak out on controversial issues without jeopardizing their employment. In a campus setting, however, academic freedom carries with it certain responsibilities. Scholars should not only respect the professional demands of their discipline and the pedagogical requirements of the teacher-student relationship, but they should not encourage efforts to abridge the free expression of controversial viewpoints.
Professors traduce their calling any deliberate action demonstrating contempt for freedom of speech.
Civility is a fragile virtue, but one upon which a university ultimately depends. Name-calling and the shouting of obscenities, even when they are not carried so far as to abridge freedom of speech, are nevertheless deplorable in a community devoted to rational persuasion and articulate controversy. Civil disobedience is not a ground for exonerating one from penalties for violating the rules of conduct regarding free expression, nor should it be a circumstance mitigating the penalty. Although non-violent civil disobedience can be an honorable way of expressing moral outrage, in a university community where the free flow of ideas is paramount, it is contradictory and misguided to employ it to deny that very right of expression to another. Symbolic Expression A. Protected Expressive Conduct in General 1.