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529US1

Unit: $U39

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BOARD OF REGENTS OF UNIV. OF WIS. SYSTEM
v. SOUTHWORTH
Souter, J., concurring in judgment

importance of a university’s ability to deﬁne its own mission
by quoting from a statement on the open universities in
South Africa:

“ ‘It is the business of a university to provide that atmos-
phere which is most conducive to speculation, experi-
ment and creation.
It is an atmosphere in which there
prevail “the four essential freedoms” of a university—to
determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach,
what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who
may be admitted to study.’ ”
Id., at 263 (citations
omitted).

These broad statements on academic freedom do not dis-
pose of the case here, however. Ewing addressed not the
relationship between academic freedom and First Amend-
ment burdens imposed by a university, but a due process
challenge to a university’s academic decisions, while as to
them the case stopped short of recognizing absolute auton-
omy. Ewing, supra, at 226, and n. 12. And Justice Frank-
furter’s discussion in Sweezy, though not rejected, was not
adopted by the full Court, Sweezy, supra, at 263 (opinion
concurring in result). Our other cases on academic freedom
thus far have dealt with more limited subjects, and do not
compel the conclusion that the objecting university student
is without a First Amendment claim here.4 While we have
spoken in terms of a wide protection for the academic free-

4 Our university cases have dealt with restrictions imposed from outside
the academy on individual teachers’ speech or associations, id., at 591–592;
Shelton v. Tucker, supra, at 487; Sweezy v. New Hampshire, supra, at 236;
Wieman v. Updegraff, supra, at 184–185, and cases dealing with the right
of teaching institutions to limit expressive freedom of students have been
conﬁned to high schools, Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S.
260, 262 (1988); Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 677
(1986); Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393
U. S. 503, 504 (1969), whose students and their schools’ relation to them
are different and at least arguably distinguishable from their counterparts
in college education.