NICE WORK: Florida State U. removes ‘correct language’ threat after College Fix inquiry.

FIRE’s Director of Policy Reform, Laura Beltz, told The Fix “academic freedom affords faculty members a great degree of deference in how they govern their classroom” even if this includes “actions that typically run counter to free speech principles in other contexts.”

For example, Beltz described how a student “levying ad hominem attacks at other students during class and preventing the class from reaching the educational objectives of [a] discussion” could reasonably be disciplined by the instructor.

Beltz’s main free speech concern over the Civil Interaction section of the original syllabus is its potential to be unevenly applied based on viewpoint.

“Faculty certainly can’t discriminate against students, so to the extent a rule like this is applied to restrict some viewpoints but not others — not to shape class discussion and meet educational goals but instead to only shut down or grade speech based on viewpoint — that would be problematic,” she said.

Indeed. And after everything we’ve seen the last couple of decades, it’s the safe assumption that viewpoint discrimination is the likely goal.