Thinking Constitutionally about the University

This lecture brings the insights of constitutional law– a discipline squarely focussed on the nature and distribution of power and on the place of institutions within democracies – have been absent. It advances an understanding of universities as institutions of democratic government and the role they play in supporting civil society, holding governments to account and enabling democratic government. This perspective raises questions as to the purpose, nature and extent of the university’s core commitments to academic freedom and freedom of speech and of the role of academics in protecting those norms.

Speaker bio:

Adrienne Stone is Melbourne Laureate Professor and Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School. She researches in the areas of constitutional law and theory in Australia and globally, freedom of expression and academic freedom. She has published widely on these topics. She teaches constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, and freedom of speech across the JD and MLM programs. As Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellow (2016-2021), she established and directed the Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law which developed a significant research capacity in comparative constitutional law at Melbourne Law School.

Among her recent publications, she is the author (with Carolyn Evans) of Open Minds: Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech (2021). With Cheryl Saunders AO she is editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Australian Constitution (2018) and with Frederick Schauer, she is editor of the Oxford Handbook on Freedom of Speech (2021). Her appointments as visiting professor include Georgetown Law Centre, Sorbonne Law School (Univ. Paris I), Tulane Law School (Summer School), University of Auckland and Reichman University (in 2024). She has given many distinguished public lecture lectures including the High Court Lecture, the Sir Frank Kitto Lecture, the Fay Gale Lectures, the Korea University Distinguished Lecture, Sir Maurice Byers Lecture, and the Geoffrey Sawer Lecture. In 2024, she will deliver the UNESCO Chair in Human Rights, Democracy and Peace Annual Lecture at Al-Najah University.

She is a founding General Editor of Comparative Constitutional Studies and an Editor in Chief of the forthcoming Elgar Encyclopedia of Constitutional Law, the immediate past President of the International Association of Constitutional Law, a former Vice President of the Australian Association of Constitutional law, an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and the Australian Academy of Law.