Academic Freedom, Intellectual Freedom and Free Speech

"The First Amendment to the Constitution protects speech no matter how offensive its content. Restrictions on speech by public colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution. Such restrictions deprive students of their right to invite speech they wish to hear, debate speech with which they disagree, and protest speech they find bigoted or offensive. An open society depends on liberal education, and the whole enterprise of liberal education is founded on the principle of free speech."   ACLU - Free Speech on Campus

• National Constitution Center: First Amendment

  Educational overview of the first amendment with summaries of interpretations and debate

• Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute: First Amendment

  Summary of information about the First Amendment with more detailed definitions of specific phrases and clauses

• National Archives: Bill of Rights

  Archival images of the Bill of Rights and information on the history and context of its creation

• Constitution Annotated

  Legal analysis and interpretation of the United States Constitution in "plain English"

• Oyez

  Multimedia archive website for the Supreme Court maintained by the by the Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law and now also sponsored by Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute and Justia.

• SCOTUSblog

  A powerful resource for U.S. Supreme Court case information. The case pages date back to October Term 2007 and provide links, where available, to freely available court documents, including briefs, the opinions of the Supreme Court and court below, the docket, the oral argument, SCOTUSblog coverage of the case, and more.

• Notable First Amendment Cases

  Frequently cited First Amendment cases, compiled by the American Library Association