Carroll v. Blinken

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Circuit Judge:

Thomas Jefferson recognized that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.” 1 At the same time, our nation’s universities preserve a longstanding tradition of tolerating and even encouraging the propagation of all sorts of disbelieved opinions. We are asked today, in a case that involves competing concerns of the First Amendment, to resolve the conflict that occurs when Jefferson’s “tyrannical” compulsion occurs in a collegiate setting. On the one hand, university students…