“The Supreme Court has held that students at public institutions do have limited rights to freedom of expression in the classroom. In *Tinker v. Des Moines School District,* 393 U.S. 503 (1969) the court held that the non-disruptive wearing of armbands in a classroom to protest the Vietnam war was protected by the First Amendment: ‘First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment,’ the Court concluded ‘are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.’”
“First Amendment rights, however, are not absolute. The Court in *Tinker* also affirmed ‘the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools.’”
“The college classroom isn’t a ‘public forum’ like a city street or a park. Teachers can define the course agenda, set and limit topics for discussion, give grades that reflect a student’s knowledge or reasoning, and maintain order in the classroom. They should freely perform these important functions, as long as they refrain from unlawful discrimination, or seek to punish students solely for expressing unpopular viewpoints pertinent to the course.”