Some Academic Freedom Victories
A bit of good news for professorial free speech.
Punishing players for kneeling, or not kneeling, is a First Amendment violation at public universities.
"[Daniel] Pollack-Pelzner ... is [also] one of many Linfield faculty members and students who have pushed back against the allegedly poor handling of sexual abuse and [harassment] claims by the administration."
The article is co-written by Prof. Randall Kennedy (Harvard), a leading scholar of race and the law, and me.
Now 14 states have legislation explicitly protecting free speech on campus.
The mandatory online training requires users to select the “right” speech before they finish.
"Terror and dread fill academic workers, professors, and staff alike, and it is everywhere."
Kieran Bhattacharya's First Amendment lawsuit can proceed, a court said.
An interesting controversy involving Portland State University.
A free online conference sponsored by the LeFrak Forum on Science, Reason, and Modern Democracy at Michigan State University.
The chaos at Lake Washington Institute of Technology is by no means an isolated occurrence.
A federal appellate court lets a professor's First Amendment claim go forward, in an opinion that powerfully protects faculty academic freedom more broadly.
That’s a clearly established constitutional mandate, the Eighth Circuit holds, so a university can’t get qualified immunity from liability in such a case.
In context, it seems clear that the post's reference to "Chinese" is indeed a reference to the Chinese government, not to people of Chinese extraction.
... about there being disproportionate number of black students near the bottom of a class.
Compare: “With the exception of traditionally black law schools ..., the median black law school grade point average is at the 6.7th percentile of white law students.”
Learn about the AFA and bring your questions
A new group defending professorial speech is launched
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is suing on her behalf.
"The University’s responsibility to protect academic freedom and freedom of expression cannot be outsourced."
An interesting ruling involving the University of Minnesota, by Judge Patrick Schiltz (himself a former professor).
May public schools punish students for off-campus social media posts?
No, not me! More on the University of Illinois at Chicago John Marshall Law School / Professor Jason Kilborn controversy.
A controversy at the University of Illinois Chicago John Marshall Law School (not to be confused with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) gets results.
Words to live by from the President of the University of Chicago, in response to demands to punish a professor who spoke out against various "diversity, equity and inclusion" programs.
"He is an icon of hate speech and transphobia."
Seems quite inconsistent with basic academic freedom principles.
The University rightly responds: "At the core of this demand is a disconnect between the law and First Amendment freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution, and the desire by many in the campus community to punish those whose comments are hurtful to others."
ISU initially criticized the tweet, but later affirmed the group's free speech rights and declined to punish them.
Kindly Inquisitors author Jonathan Rauch on the never-ending battle to defend free speech
Speech First, a pro-campus-free-speech advocacy group, can go on with its challenge to UT-Austin's speech codes—and the panel strongly suggests those codes (backed by anonymous reporting to the Campus Climate Response Team) are unconstitutional.