Susanne Lohmann, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) recently announced that she would fail students in certain classes of hers who recorded lectures or class discussions.
Lohmann said that the decision was a necessary one in order to protect students from the fear of being attacked for expressing controversial viewpoints during in-class debates.
In a sample course syllabus that Lohmann provided to Campus Reform, she explained that her policy aimed to protect free speech by empowering students to meaningfully engage with controversial political issues.
“As citizens of the university, you enjoy academic freedom, which is a special case of [free speech]. You have the right to express yourself freely in the context of a class-related activity,” the syllabus reads. “With rights come obligations. You are obligated to respect your classmates’ speech rights, and they are obligated to respect yours. Speech can be hurtful or hateful, whether in intention or in effect: either way, if it occurs in the context of a class-related activity it is protected speech.”
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