Abstract
It is only the minimum extent to which the law becomes the instrument of coping with social tautness regarding the academic freedom. On the one hand, legal provisions significantly limit the number of cases related to hate crimes but on the other, they sometimes narrow a discussion due to difficulties in harmonizing individual’s rights and campuses’ perception - a phenomenon, which in the U.S. had been called as “chilling” the freedom. Undoubtedly, the enactment of free speech or academic freedom regulations at universities is necessary as it helps to prevent from a “hate speech” but the legal shape of this process has been strictly connected to a determination for either liberal or conservative description of the academic freedom.
 Regarding the newest Niche’s rankings, ten universities have been selected, five out of the most liberal and five the most conservative public ones. Furthermore, two catholic universities have been added to describe differences in defining the academic freedom. Moreover, some references have been made to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and the very fundamental documents, namely the 1940 Statement and Harvard Free Speech Guidelines. In the separate article a problem of legislative acts that had been enacted for the past two years in a response to Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression by the University of Chicago of 2014 will be covered. A few remarks upon this matter have been hereby made, though.
 The article is based on a dogmatic legal method, including quotations of legal sources and their subsequent analysis.
Highlights
A major terminological problem concerns the meaning of liberal and conservative universities
The famous Free Speech Guidelines of Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1990 accentuates that “the University places special emphasis, as well, upon certain values which are essential to its nature as an academic community. Among these are freedom of speech and academic freedom, freedom from personal force and violence, and freedom of movement”8.Saying that these freedoms constitute the foundations of development of the academic community is a platitude, but at the same time calling out such a fundamental phrase may seem to be either vague or ambiguous when we examine how the academic freedom depends on the community, its diversity or homogeneity, conservatism or libertarianism and how individual freedoms interfere with institutional ones
In regard to ties between democracy, free speech and politics, it seems to be meaningful that in 1967 the protection given to the academic freedom dictated against traditional understanding of the role of an individual in community, while today those freedoms are often called out to fight for abolishing a supremacy of individualism
Summary
A major terminological problem concerns the meaning of liberal and conservative universities. In the context of academic freedom, one may conclude that at liberal institutions progressive ideas predominate, while conservative universities either expressly or indirectly refer to tradition, religious beliefs, anti-liberal morality, in other words they reject morality understood as a choice of values by an autonomous individual and envision a more limited status of individuals and identity groups at the campus community. Such ideologies may have an impact on academic discourse and on the functioning of the campus as well. If only those with more politically correct views are allowed to voice their opinions, they would effectively discriminate against all
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