I say “alleged,” because these days even email can be forged.   But the source is quite credible:  renowned law professor, Eugene Volokh’s blog.

Here’s the comment (from the 2003 archives):

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“MORE THREATS OF CENSORSHIP:

Prof. Francis Boyle at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, is an indefatigable opponent of this Administration; he’s the drafter of the Draft Impeachment Resolution Against President George W. Bush, and has spoken out often and stridently against both the war in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

In the process, he condemns the Administration for various (generally unnamed) violations of the First Amendment…..

A speech entitled “No War Against Afghanistan!” says

“Let me conclude by saying that we still have our first amendment rights, despite Ashcroft’s best efforts.”

Daily Illini article from last Fall quotes him as complaining that

“The climate [at the law school] is very threatening to professors of dissent.”

Curiously, though, a reliable source just passed along to me an e-mail that Boyle sent around last November, which seems to demonstrate a slightly different attitude about the First Amendment:

Subject: To: Department of Justice, Office of Civil Rights:”Boyle Bashing“

It has already been reported in national news media sources, that I have filed a Complaint with the Department of Justice, Office of Civil Rights, which is currently pending.

Any “Boyle bashing” will be filed with DOJ/OCR in support of that Complaint, including this message.

That could create problems for people dealing with a Character and Fitness Committee who want to be admitted to the Bar somewhere.

Francis A. Boyle Professor of Law

Interesting — a professor threatening to try to jeopardize the careers of people (presumably students, since they’re the ones who would most care about Bar admission) if they criticize (“bash”) him.

(The law school dean, to her credit, promptly condemned Boyle’s actions.)

This is not, however, the first example of Prof. Boyle’s somewhat limited view of free speech. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Prof. Boyle had also sent around (in 1997) a mass e-mail calling for law professors “to prevent[] the appointment of Federalist Society Members to our faculties,” a policy that would violate basic academic freedom principles, and, if engaged in by public schools (such as Prof. Boyle’s own), would violate the First Amendment.

And note also the basis for the Complaint that Boyle’s e-mail refers to (from Reason):

Boyle, described by legendary activist Philip Berrigan as “a lawyer of the quality of Thomas More or Gandhi . . . the most competent and impassioned advocate of international law in the U.S.,” claims he experienced discrimination when he objected to the bar crawls graduate students hold every St. Patricks Day. “A bar crawl in honor of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, and one of the great figures of Western Judeo-Christian Civilization, is completely sacrilegious,” he says.

Boyle’s objections, he says, made him a target.

“It’s clearly a hostile work environment for me,” he says.

“I’ve been subject to ridicule by students and student organizations. This is a hostile environment based on my race — I’m of Irish nationality and a citizen of the Irish Republic — and on my religion — I’m Catholic.”

Indeed, Boyle claims the harassment got so bad that he complained to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, noting that “it doesn’t cost me anything” to have the government investigate his claims.

Yet when pressed for details, Boyle becomes as vague as Van Morrison lyrics. “I got nasty e-mails,” the professor says, giving no hint of their contents.

“They ridiculed me for being Catholic and ridiculed Catholicism. Two years ago, they even made a T-shirt ridiculing me.”

Was this ridicule based on religion or ethnicity, or do Boyle’s students and colleagues just dislike him? Without examples, it’s impossible to say.

Apparently “the First Amendments rights of . . . freedom of speech” do not, in Prof. Boyle’s book, extend to people who want to ridicule Catholicism, or, for that matter, their professors.

“Free speech for me,” as Nat Hentoff’s book title says, “but not for thee.”

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This incident is also referenced in “Liberty In Troubled Times,” James Walsh, 2004.

Apparently,  this is not the only time Professor Boyle has acted high-handedly.

In 2008, he wrote to the state of Illinois to intervene and suspend all liquor licenses for a period of several days:

“The good citizens of Champaign and Urbana will suffer from civil disturbances, large-scale public drunkenness, destruction of property, physical assaults and batteries, rapes and more deaths,” Boyle said in his complaint.

So he asked the commission to suspend all liquor licenses for every bar and liquor store between Lincoln Avenue and Prospect Avenue and between University Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue.

In a separate letter to Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Boyle asked for intervention under the state Illinois Emergency Management Act, which gives the governor power “to suspend or limit the sale, dispensing, or transportation of alcoholic beverages.”

Boyle asked the governor to do so in Champaign-Urbana from Feb. 29 through March 2.”