Guided by legal, sociolegal, and higher education concepts, we use an embedded case study of university administrators at a public institution to examine how they negotiate and institutionalize principles of freedom of expression and inclusion in responses to the proliferation of on-campus hate speech following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Our findings reveal that an institution's legal context and administrators’ interpretations of law and law-related pressures shape their understanding of hate speech–related incidents, and the permissible responses, in ways that make it nearly impossible to consider and implement inclusion-focused practices. We advance the concept of “repressive legalism” to explain these dynamics and discuss implications for policies and practices that support both open, robust expression and inclusion for students of color.

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Over the last 3 years, the advocacy organization Speech First has filed six lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of bias response teams on the grounds that they violate free speech. Bias response teams are university-wide committees that respond to reports of racially charged incidents on college campuses to promote institutional goals of inclusion. These lawsuits are significant because they have resulted in the dismantling of these committees. In this commentary, we bring attention to this renewed wave of legal attacks on racial diversity and inclusion policies on college campuses and its implications for race-focused policy, practice, and research.

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