Only the First Amendment Can Protect Students, Campuses and Speech; The New York Times, September 6, 2024

Cass R. Sunstein , The New York Times; Only the First Amendment Can Protect Students, Campuses and Speech

"To answer those questions, we should turn to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Those words provide the right foundation for forging a new consensus about the scope and importance of free speech in higher education.

As a rallying cry, that consensus should endorse the greatest sentence ever written by a Supreme Court justice. In 1943, Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”

It is true that private colleges and universities, unlike public ones, are not subject to the First Amendment, which applies only to public officials and institutions. If Harvard, Stanford, Baylor, Vanderbilt, Pomona or Colby wants to restrict speech, the First Amendment does not stand in their way.

Still, most institutions of higher learning, large or small, would do well to commit themselves to following the First Amendment of their own accord.

First Amendment doctrine, developed over the centuries, provides excellent guidance."

Minnesota colleges grappling with ethics and potential benefits of ChatGPT; Star Tribune, August 6, 2023

Hannah Pinski , Star Tribune ; Minnesota colleges grappling with ethics and potential benefits of ChatGPT

"While some Minnesota academics are concerned about students using ChatGPT to cheat, others are trying to figure out the best way to teach and use the tool in the classroom.

"The tricky thing about this is that you've got this single tool that can be used very much unethically in an educational setting," said Darin Ulness, a chemistry professor at Concordia College in Moorhead. "But at the same time, it can be such a valuable tool that we can't not use it.""

Inside the AP’s investigation into the ethics practices of the Supreme Court justices; AP, July 11, 2023

ERIC TUCKER AND BRIAN SLODYSKO, AP ; Inside the AP’s investigation into the ethics practices of the Supreme Court justices

"An Associated Press examination of the ethics practices of the U.S. Supreme Court relied on documents obtained from more than 100 public records requests to public colleges, universities and other institutions that have hosted the justices over the past decade.

Here’s a look at how the reporting was done:...

Some institutions were less forthcoming. The AP went to the Illinois state attorney general to get a binding opinion directing the Chicago Public Library to produce documents related to a visit by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Other schools, including the University of Arizona, have said their search for records remained ongoing after more than six months.

The AP did pay some schools for documents, including $350 to the University of Utah; $140 to Michigan State University; $159.24 to the University of Minnesota; and roughly $150 to the University of Mississippi.

But some schools responded to records requests with fee demands that the AP deemed unreasonable. The initial fee cited by the University of Georgia for processing two requests was $18,800.50, though it was later reduced after the AP narrowed its request."

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s staff prodded colleges and libraries to buy her books; AP, July 11, 2023

BRIAN SLODYSKO AND ERIC TUCKER, AP; Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s staff prodded colleges and libraries to buy her books

"Sotomayor’s staff has often prodded public institutions that have hosted the justice to buy her memoir or children’s books, works that have earned her at least $3.7 million since she joined the court in 2009. Details of those events, largely out of public view, were obtained by The Associated Press through more than 100 open records requests to public institutions. The resulting tens of thousands of pages of documents offer a rare look at Sotomayor and her fellow justices beyond their official duties.

In her case, the documents reveal repeated examples of taxpayer-funded court staff performing tasks for the justice’s book ventures, which workers in other branches of government are barred from doing. But when it comes to promoting her literary career, Sotomayor is free to do what other government officials cannot because the Supreme Court does not have a formal code of conduct, leaving the nine justices to largely write and enforce their own rules.

“This is one of the most basic tenets of ethics laws that protects taxpayer dollars from misuse,” said Kedric Payne, a former deputy chief counsel at the Office of Congressional Ethics and current general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government watchdog group in Washington. “The problem at the Supreme Court is there’s no one there to say whether this is wrong.”"