Miles Coleman | Balancing DEI and faculty free speech
VIDEO: In the "5 Questions With" interview, Miles Coleman and Abigal Wood discuss how and why First Amendment rights must be protected on university campuses that have been roiled by contentious issues.
http://tinyurl.com/022624NCLW
Abigail Seymour | Delays in attending law school
VIDEO: Some students arrive at law school fresh off their undergrad education. Others such as Abigail Seymour take a longer route. https://tinyurl.com/022324NCLW
Miles Coleman | Universities' duties to protect free speech
Free speech rights on university campuses are often challenged, particularly with contentious issues such as the Israel-Hamas war and the opposing political and administrative stands of the major parties. In this "5 Questions With" video, Miles Coleman, a First Amendment and education lawyer, discusses how universities can protect free speech rights, including:
• “We want public universities to be places of debate, civil discourse, a marketplace of ideas where all different perspectives are welcome, and at the same time making sure that they are places where safety, actually physical safety, protection from violence, intimidation and disruption, are also values that are honored.”
• “The university needs to maintain neutrality … regardless of whether the university finds one idea better or worse, disagreeable or controversial.”
• “When counterprotests or protests or disruptions or demonstrations threaten to interfere with the physical safety of the speaker or attendees, the universities need to do something.”
• “Universities do this all the time in other contexts. They have the capacity to do it, they have the personnel to do it, and they know how to do it. And they need to be prepared to do it in the First Amendment context as well.”
Look for the “5 Questions With” interview with Coleman and Abigail Wood to be published later this month in North Carolina Lawyers Weekly and to be posted online soon at nclawyersweekly.com.
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