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Page Number: 64.0

16 

CHRISTIAN LEGAL SOC. CHAPTER OF UNIV. OF CAL., 
HASTINGS COLLEGE OF LAW v. MARTINEZ 
ALITO, J., dissenting 

that  universities  should  be  permitted  to  impose  restric-
tions  on  speech  that  would  not  be  tolerated  elsewhere. 
Brief for American Association of Presidents of Independ-
ent Colleges and Universities 11–12. 

The  Healy  Court  would  have  none  of  this.    Unlike  the 
Court  today,  the  Healy  Court  emphatically  rejected  the 
proposition  that  “First  Amendment  protections  should 
apply  with  less  force  on  college  campuses  than  in  the
community  at  large.”  408  U. S.,  at  180.    And  on  one  key 
question  after  another—whether  the  local  SDS  chapter 
was independent of the national organization, whether the
group  posed  a  substantial  threat  of  material  disruption,
and  whether  the  students’  responses  to  the  committee’s
questions  about  violence  and  disruption  signified  a  will-
ingness  to  engage  in  such  activities—the  Court  drew
its  own  conclusions,  which  differed  from  the  college
president’s.

The Healy  Court was true to the principle that when it
comes to the interpretation and application of the right to
free  speech,  we  exercise  our  own  independent  judgment.
We  do  not  defer  to  Congress  on  such  matters,  see  Sable 
Communications  of  Cal.,  Inc.  v.  FCC,  492  U. S.  115,  129 
(1989), and there is no reason why we should bow to uni-
versity administrators. 

In the end, I see only two possible distinctions between 
Healy and the present case.  The first is that Healy did not 
involve  any  funding,  but  as  I  have  noted,  funding  plays
only a small part in this case.  And if Healy would other-
wise prevent Hastings from refusing to register CLS, I see 
no  good  reason  why  the  potential  availability  of  funding 
should enable Hastings to deny all of the other rights that
go with registration. 

This  leaves  just  one  way  of  distinguishing  Healy:  the 
identity of the student group.  In Healy, the Court warned 
that the college president’s views regarding the philosophy
of  the  SDS  could  not  “justify  the  denial  of  First  Amend-