while protecting against discriminatory harassment and disruptive conduct.

Schools must not single out particular viewpoints for censorship, discipline, or disproportionate punishment.

Schools must protect students from discriminatory harassment and violence.

Schools can announce and enforce reasonable content-neutral protest policies but they must leave ample room for students to express themselves.

Schools must recognize that armed police on campus can endanger students and are a measure of last resort.

Schools must resist the pressures placed on them by politicians seeking to exploit campus tensions.

Finally, campus leaders must resist the pressures placed on them by politicians seeking to exploit campus tensions to advance their own notoriety or partisan agendas. Recent congressional hearings have featured disgraceful attacks by members of Congress on academic freedom and freedom of speech. Universities must stand up to such intimidation, and defend the principles of academic freedom so essential to their integrity and mission.

The Supreme Court has forcefully rejected the premise that, “because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large.”

“Quite to the contrary,” the court stated, “the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.” In keeping with these values, we urge you to resist the temptation to silence students or faculty members because powerful voices deem their views offensive. Instead, we urge you to defend the university’s core mission of encouraging debate, fostering dissent, and preparing the future leaders of our pluralistic society to tolerate even profound differences of opinion.'

With these guidelines to support them and with the knowledge that the ACLU will stand with College and University Presidents who choose to uphold the constitutional rights of everyone, these Presidents will have the courage they need to stand strong against those who are trying to stifle the student's freedom of expression.