To the chagrin of the vast majority of professors of constitutional law, President-elect Donald Trump has promised to appoint judges to the Supreme Court and throughout the federal judiciary who believe that the Constitution’s original meaning provides authoritative guidance in resolving cases and controversies.

Much as administrators and faculty may dislike it, the fact is that public colleges are subject to both the First Amendment and the state legislatures that fund them. Legislators shouldn’t micromanage the campuses, but they must set some basic rules.

On college campuses, outrage over provocative speakers sometimes turns violent. It's becoming a pattern on campuses around the country. A speaker is invited, often by a conservative student group. Other students oppose the speaker, and maybe they protest. If the speech happens, the speaker is heckled. Sometimes there's violence.

The threat to free speech in the United States is by no means restricted to colleges and universities, but they have become breeding grounds, training camps, and launching pads in the campaign to curtail liberty of thought and discussion. It is on our campuses where the battle for free speech will be won or lost.

In law schools — as well as in public discourse and at the highest levels of government — international law, particularly the law of armed conflict, has become a hot topic...

Like an individual mixed up about his convictions, a nation perplexed about its principles is prone to self-inflicted wounds. Both are likely to wander aimlessly and choose friends poorly while falling for the blandishments of adversaries. They are prone to misjudge their interests and misconstrue justice. A nation perplexed about its principles exacerbates citizens’ muddle about their convictions. 

Many in the United States worry about the erosion of democratic norms. Too few, however, exhibit concern for the steady deterioration over the last half century of the essential democratic norm of free speech.

In April, former New York Times journalist Judith Miller revealed in “The Story” that by manipulating her memory through tendentious questioning and withholding exculpatory evidence, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald induced her to give false testimony that in 2007 helped convict I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of obstruction of justice, false statements, and perjury.

Merrick Garland, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, long a pipeline to the Supreme Court, could be one of least controversial choices to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens, according to legal experts.