Starting this Monday (5), law schools in the US will have to explicitly protect the right to freedom of expression of faculty, students and staff in order to obtain formal recognition from the American Bar Association (ABA), the bar association of USA.
The ABA, which regulates legal education and admission to the bar in the United States, today approved a new rule that requires law schools to have “written policies that encourage and support the free expression of ideas.”
According to the entity, policies must respect the “diversity of opinions”, even if they are controversial or unpopular, and guarantee “robust debate, demonstrations or protests”, as well as prohibiting “disruptive activities that harm free expression or interfere substantially in the functions or activities of the law school.”
The new rule was approved by the ABA House of Delegates, the body responsible for formulating the entity's policies, during its meeting in Louisville, a city located in the American state of Kentucky. The new rule, however, also allows law schools to restrict “expression that violates the law” such as defamatory speech, threats, harassment, or speech that “unreasonably invades privacy or confidentiality.”
The rules for a law school to be recognized by the ABA already required the right to academic freedom for professors, therefore, they were expanded this Monday to guarantee the same right for the entire academic community.
According to information from the agency Reutersthe new rule had already been approved by the ABA Legal Education and Bar Examination Section Council in November, but it was only this Monday, with the approval of the House of Delegates, that it was officially confirmed as a requirement for the recognition of faculties.
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