Hate Speech and Academic Freedom in the Academy

score how the standpoint and narrative of the author frames one’s understanding of controversial topics. At their base, the concepts of hate speech and academic freedom are philosophical ideas that project how one envisions academic life. They are also topics worthy of scholarly analysis and research. Indeed, without such analysis and research, these admittedly controversial concepts end up as political hot potatoes tossed back and forth by bickering constituencies. Although the academy ought to be a public arena where diverse viewpoints and healthy debates flourish, there also needs to be agreement about core values. One cannot assume that academic freedom is a core value if academic freedom does not exist. Accordingly, I consider three books that highlight the existing tensions. After offering a brief overview of each book, I first consider the authors’ standpoints and methods for reaching conclusions. I then consider how the authors characterize the tension between academic freedom and diversity, and I suggest what academics might take from these books to apply on their own campuses. In The People v. Harvard Law: How America’s Oldest Law School Turned Its Back on Free Speech, Andrew Peyton Thomas offers an insider’s view of what he believes to have occurred at Harvard Law School over the last several years. Thomas begins by chronicling the problems that Kiwi Camara, a young Filipino American student, faced when he used a racial epithet about African Americans in his class notes and allowed the notes to be posted on a public website for Harvard law students. When Camara’s classmates learned what he had written, a great deal of anger ensued, and the law school considered enacting a speech code. Thomas not only reports on this controversy but also embeds in his analysis accounts of related activities that have taken place at Harvard Law over the last 29 years. The People v. Harvard Law: How Amer-