To allow colleges to restrict a field of research, either by censuring a professor or by limiting funding, would be to suggest that no academic advances should be made in that field. Such an attitude would seem to run contrary to the purpose of institutions of higher education. Where a college blocks a professor’s efforts to research a particular issue, the implication is that the censors fear what might be found.

As government entities, public universities are just as precluded by West Virginia v. Barnette from deciding “what shall be orthodox” as Congress is. That means that although a school administration may question the methodology or classroom performance of a professor, it cannot prohibit a field of inquiry simply because the subject is controversial.