UNIVERSITY WATCH : Free-Speech Boundaries

Should a white professor suffer a penalty--dismissal from a department chairmanship, for example--if he or she makes a politically incorrect comment about blacks? No, conservatives have tended to argue. Yes, liberals have often maintained, one person’s mere political incorrectness being another’s outright racism.

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court took, roughly, the liberal side, but it did so in a case in which the stereotypical roles were reversed. This time, it was a black, Leonard Jeffries, who had been stripped of his chairmanship because of politically incorrect (or racist) comments about whites, specifically about Jews.

At issue is not just Jeffries’ right to express his views, which the court does not contest, but the right of the City College of New York to employ whom it chooses in pursuit of its legitimate ends. Both rights deserve defense. In returning the case to a lower court for retrial, the Supreme Court has not ruled on the merits of the university’s claim against Jeffries but it has affirmed that this kind of claim does not in principle violate the First Amendment.

The comments that cost Jeffries his black studies department chairmanship were truly racist and inimical to the purposes of a university. On the merits, Jeffries should lose. But the principle is larger than this application.

An employer may not simply fire an employee with whom it disagrees, but not all misbehavior can be protected as speech. There are crucial distinctions to be made; it remains to be seen whether in the resolution of this case they will be.