Reconciling Rights and Responsibilities of Colleges and Students: Offensive Speech, Assembly, Drug Testing, and Safety. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 5.

This monograph suggests solutions for the conflicts, especially prominent in recent years, between students and higher education institutions concerning their respective rights and responsibilities. The discussion focuses particularly on regulating offensive speech, rights of association and assembly, drug testing for athletes, and student safety on campus. Separate sections address each of these issues in turn. The discussion of offensive speech focuses on interpretations of First Amendment rights and advises that colleges should consider policies that are neither overbroad nor too vague, but that restrictions on time, place and manner of speech appropriate for the educational environment and for maintaining law and order on campus are constitutional. The review of rights of assembly and association suggests that once the institution recognizes some groups, other groups should not be denied such treatment simply because the college or university does not agree with their views. On the status of mandatory drug testing for athletes, the monograph notes that most recent court rulings appear to support the position that institutional mandatory drug testing programs violate the principle of protection of privacy guaranteed in most state constitutions. In discussing student safety on campus it is noted that the element of foreseeability has become a criterion for determining liability. A final section suggests recommendations for policy and practice. An index and 167 references are included. (JB)