Sweezy v. New Hampshire (Supreme Court, 1957)    

The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident....Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die.

---Chief Justice Warren

It is the business of a unviersity to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to specualtion, experiment and creation. It is an atmosphere in which there prevail "the four essential freedoms" of a university---to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what maybe taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.

---Justice Frankfurter

Shelton v. Tucker (Supreme Court, 1960)

The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools. "By limiting the pwoer of the states to itnerfere with freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry and freedom of association, the Fourteenth Amendment protects all persons, no matter what their calling. But, in view of the nature of the teacher's relation to the effective excercise of the rights which are safeguarded by the Bill of Rights and by the Fourteenth Amendment, inhibition of freedom of thought, and of action upon though, in the case of teachers brings the safeguards of those amendments vividly into operation. Such unwarranted inhibition upon the free spirit of teachers...has an unmistakable tedency to chill that free play of the spirit which all teachers should especially to cultivate and practice; it amkes for caution and timidity in their associations by potential teachers.

---Frankfurter

Griswold v. Connecticut (Supreme Court, 1965)

the State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contact the spectrum of available knowledge. The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and to teach---indeed the freedom of the entire university community. Withou those peripheral rights the specific rights would be less secure.

Keyishian v. Board of Regents (Supreme Court, 1967)

Our nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom....The classroom is preculiarly the "marketplace of ideas". The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth "out of a multitude of tongues, rather than through any kind of authoritative selection"...

Cohen v. SanBernardino Valley College (C.D Cal. 1995)

In applying a "hostile environment" prohibition, there is the dangerthat the most sensitive and the most easily offended students will be givenveto power over class content and methodology. Good teaching should challengestudents and at times may intimidate students or make themuncomfortable...Colleges and universities...must avoid a tyranny of mediocrity,in which all discourse is made bland enough to suit the tastes of all thestudents. However, colleges and universities must have the power to require professorsto effectively educate all segments of the student population, including thosestudents unused to the rough and tumble of intellectual discussion. If collegesand universities lack this power, each classroom becomes a separate fiefdom inwhich the educational process is subject to professorial whim. Universitiesmust be able to ensure that the more vulnerable as well as the moresophisticated students receive a suitable education....Within the educationalcontext, the university's mission is to effectively educate students, keepingin mind students' varying background and sensitivities. Furthermore, the universityhad the right to preclude disruption of this educational mission through thecreation of a hostile learning environment...The college’s substantial interestin educating all student, not just the thick-skinned one, warrant...requiring Cohento put potential students on notice of his teaching methods.

Silvav. University of New Hampshire (D.N.H. 1994)

Focusis like sex. You seek a target. You zero in on your subject. You move from sideto side. You close in on the subject. You bracket the subject and center on it.Focus connects the experience and language. You and the subject become one. (ina technical writing class)

Bellydancing is like jello on a plate with a vibrator under the plate. (toillustrate the use of metaphor)