[...] today Idisagreed at length with a comment by The FIRE’s Adam Kissel regarding a case at Colorado College and whether [...]

I know, because I used to bring First Amendment cases.

Examples are the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Little v. North Miami, holding a censure to be a First Amendment violation, the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Columbus Education Association v. Columbus Board of Education, finding a reprimand from a supervisor to be a First Amendment violation, and the Ninth Circuit’s expungement of a reprimand from a professor’s record in Cohen v. San Bernardino Valley College, 92 F.3d 968 (9th Cir. 1996).

So while some court decisions are consistent with what the above post says, some conflict with it.

I agree that the school’s actions were morally repugnant, and that to the extent their response was “more speech” it should be met with new and additional condemning speech. I just don’t see it as “punishment” in a free speech sense.

Nonetheless, the permanent record notation is punishment. Not from a legal perspective, but a moral perspective. It is wrong, not from a legal perspective, but a moral perspective.

2. I’m not sure that legally speaking I agree on your point about the Permanent Record. Again, the cases I reviewed and cited above suggest that the question is whether state censure has a direct (and, it seems, state-imposed) component of loss of property rights. A third party reacting to an “official censure” may be too attenuated from a legal standpoint.

3. Also, I’m not sure if “official censure” has a different consequence than vocal condemnation in the age of Google. Will a potential transferee school react differently to a Google hit on a school president’s condemnation than on a letter in the file?

Which leads to the point of disagreement. The note in each student’s permanent record most certainly is a punishment, in the event that student applies to graduate school or for a transfer to another college (as he may wish to do after these events). “This will go down in your permanent record” was a joke in middle school, but it isn’t in college, as colleges do share this sort of information. From a semantic standpoint, not a legal one, blacklisting (which is what this is) seems to be punishment as much or more so than the feminist shaming seminar. Which also wasn’t punishment from a legal perspective. The two minutes’ hate will be over in two minutes, but the permanent record may indeed have permanent repercussions. And none of it seems justified, though of course none is illegal.

This would have been a more interesting question had a state college done what Colorado College did.