Last year’s protests against the war in Gaza produced a state of turmoil on college campuses not seen since the 1960s. The outcry also raised a question as central to that earlier era as to our own: What does free expression mean at a university?

With that query still lingering everywhere from university quadrangles to congressional committee rooms, Tony Banout and Tom Ginsburg give us “The Chicago Canon on Free Inquiry and Expression,” a welcome collection of foundational documents that have long shaped the terms of the debate over free expression on campus and that, decades after the documents were first published, still offer principled guidance and clarity on the issue.

Setting aside the unfortunate title—“canon” is the wrong choice for a book whose content argues against orthodoxy—the volume is an important resource, bringing together both well-known texts and new discoveries. Following an insightful introduction by Messrs. Banout and Ginsburg, who together lead the University of Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression, the text is organized into three parts. The first includes speeches and statements by University of Chicago presidents and other past and current leaders at the institution. The second is a sampling of faculty speeches to incoming students. The third contains reports by faculty committees.

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