UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar analyzes a recent federal court ruling that reinstated Preston Damsky, an openly antisemitic law student expelled from the University of Florida, in a case that raises complex legal questions about how public universities navigate First Amendment protections against disruptive or threatening student speech. Professor Amar argues that while Damsky’s speech may be constitutionally protected, the judge’s reasoning was flawed in both legal doctrine and logic, and that the university’s disciplinary decision may ultimately be upheld under free speech standards that take into account educational disruption and reasonable fears of violence.

In this first of a two-part series of columns discussing a recent incident at a North Carolina high school where a student was suspended for using the term “illegal alien” in class, UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar and Illinois Law professor Jason Mazzone explain the relevant First Amendment case law surrounding student speech in public K-12 schools. Professors Amar and Mazzone suggest that under the Supreme Court’s decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which allows schools broad authority to regulate student speech that occurs within the curriculum, the school may have been justified in disciplining the student, but they note that there are still some unresolved questions and complexities that they will address in Part II of their analysis.