To the Editor:
The Cavalier Daily was right to argue a lecturer's criticism of Black Lives Matter was protected by the First Amendment in its Oct. 10 editorial.
Doug Muir’s criticism of BLM as supposedly being racist was protected by the First Amendment, under court rulings like Dube v. State University of New York (1990). That ruling concluded a professor had a First Amendment right to repeatedly declare that Zionism is racism. His speech was protected even though it infuriated many.
Worse speech has been held protected. In Levin v. Harleston (1992), an appeals court ruled the First Amendment protected a professor whose published "writings contained a number of denigrating comments concerning the intelligence and social characteristics of blacks."
Sincerely,
Hans Bader
CLAS ‘91
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