Others argue that restrictions may in fact be necessary. When rigorously questioned by President Derek C. Bok at the Faculty meeting, Nye said that he could conceive of a situation where the rights granted to members of the University are narrower than those given to the public.

"If you look at the report, it is still within the Constitution," Nye says. "It is still consistent with the Constitution legally."

And while an unusually broad and restrictive code at the University of Michigan was struck down last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, officials at other schools defend the Constitutionality of their own free speech guidelines.

The University of Wisconsin's rules, revised in September, now promise disciplinary action against students whose expression is found to be offensive. They cite the shouting of racial epithets and the hanging of derogatory banners as behavior that might warrant discipline.

"The rule stands because it does not have the vagueness and breadth of the University of Michigan rule," says James E. Sulton, special assistant for minority affairs to the Wisconsin's president.

The Harvard rules have already been reviewed twice by the office of Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54, and the tabled portion is now being reviewed a third time. And Nye says that the added debate on the preamble will ultimately strengthen the Harvard policy.

"There is a concern in a lot of colleges and universities about how to protect free speech," says Nye. "Difficult choices have to be drawn."