University ACLU Intervention in Franklin Firing Sparks Campus Conflict

4.2.12 WC: 191694 I persuaded the local ACLU chapter to become involved but I, and my research assistant Joel Klein, took the lead in defending Franklin. Word quickly spread around the Stanford campus that I had gotten the ACLU into the case. I was criticized for my intrusion into the affairs of my host university. President Lyman went on the radio to attack me: It is a myth that all speech is constitutionally protected. No constitutional lawyer in the land—no, not even Mr. Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor come to Stanford to save us all from sin—not even Mr. Dershowitz could make such a sweeping claim. I responded with my own statement in the Stanford Daily: There are important civil liberties issues at stake in the Franklin firing. If Dr. Lyman wants to challenge my view of the Constitution or civil liberties—and those of the ACLU—I invite that challenge, on its merits. Lyman rejected my invitation to debate and continued to attack me—both personally and through his surrogates—in highly personal terms. The hostility toward me and toward the ACLU spread quickly among the established faculty. Not surprisingly, it soon reached the Faculty Committee that was considering the Franklin case. We filed a brief on behalf of the ACLU urging Stanford, which is a private university, to apply the spirit of the First Amendment to Franklin’s case. The committee agreed and said they were applying First Amendment standards, but it ruled, in a divided vote, that Franklin’s speeches violated those standards. They found that he “did intentionally write and urge” students and other to “occupy the computation center illegally,” to “disobey the order to disperse” and to “engage in conduct which would disrupt activities of the university and threaten injury to individuals and property.” Following the Franklin firing I gave a lecture on the implications of the case. I predicted that Franklin himself would soon be forgotten because his message would be rejected in the free marketplace of ideas. But the Committee’s decision would be long remembered as a leading precedent in the jurisprudence of universities. I concluded my lecture by pointing an accusing finger at some of the faculty who pretended that the Franklin case raised no important civil liberties issues: How often have I heard the absurd remark that Franklin is being fired for what he “did,” not for what he “said,” without a recognition that this quibble doesn’t’ hide the fact what he “did” was to make speeches. How often I have heard the statement that this case does not involve “academic freedom,” it is simply an employer firing an employee for disloyalty—as if a requirement of loyalty and academic freedom were compatible. [T]he true test of a genuine civil libertarian is how he responds to a crisis close at hand. 134 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017221