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Collin College Prof Reinstated; Had Been Fired for Advocacy of Union + of Removing Confederate Monuments
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression reports (for more, read Judge Amos Mazzant's August 25 decision denying the college's motion to summary judgment, Jones v. Collin College):
Today, administrators at Collin College agreed to a settlement that includes reinstating education professor Suzanne Jones, fired by the institution last year for her protected speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression represented Jones in her lawsuit….
As part of the settlement, the college agreed to a two-year, $230,000 teaching contract with Jones and to pay $145,000 in attorneys' fees. …
Under President H. Neil Matkin, Collin College — the epicenter of censorship in Texas — fired Jones on Jan. 28, 2021. The college cited three incidents that led to her firing:
- In 2017, Jones signed her name and college affiliation on a published open letter supporting the removal of Confederate monuments in Dallas.
- In 2020, Jones used the name of Collin College on a website associated with the Texas Faculty Association, a statewide faculty union Jones helped organize at Collin College.
- Jones, who sat on the Collin College Faculty Council, publicly supported the council's proposed plan regarding campus reopening amidst the pandemic.
Despite calling Jones an "excellent faculty member" with positive reviews and extensive service to the college, Collin College Vice President Toni Jenkins joined Matkin to authorize the non-renewal of Jones' teaching contract—against the recommendations of her associate dean, dean, and provost….
In September 2021, Jones sued Collin College and the administrators responsible for her termination. FIRE began representing Jones on Feb. 14, 2022. In August, the court denied a motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity and ruled that Collin College administrators could be held personally and financially responsible for their actions. The court called the defendants' argument "dead on arrival" and said their actions were "clearly unconstitutional."
FIRE filed two other lawsuits against Collin College.
- In January, history professor Lora Burnett prevailed in her own First Amendment lawsuit against the school after she was fired for criticizing public officials and the Collin College administration. Under the court judgment, Collin College agreed to pay more than $70,000 in damages plus attorneys' fees.
- Less than two months later, history professor Michael Phillips sued the college, Matkin, and other university officials for violating his constitutional rights by firing him for talking about history and criticizing the college's COVID-19 policies. In September, the court denied the College's motion to dismiss, allowing Phillips to proceed with his claim alleging the College imposed an unconstitutional prior restraint on his speech….
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What is so hard about free speech?
“What is so hard about free speech?”
If you are asking Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob Kirkland, he is not able to answer, at least not at this forum.
The state should probably consider firing Matkin because he is too dumb to realize that he
1. is the president of a public college,
2. is part of the state government, and
3. may not abridge the freedom of expression of the public including Suzanne Jones.
Matkin is wasting a lot of college (i.e. public) money for no reason. Matkin should pay back to the State of Texas all the money he has pointlessly expended.
The judge’s decision was a no-brainer — a characterization that Matkin also deserves.
The real scandal is that one gets 115,000 per year to teach at Collin College.
If it were a private school, I couldn’t care less. It isn’t though. The people of Texas ought to shut it down (along with all other public colleges / universities).
So that would be “no” to market-based wages, then? Or is this meant to be a general comment on the value of formal education?
I think the opinion’s result is clearly correct. But one aspect of it may go a bit too far. The opinion takes the fact that Jones’ speech was in violation of university policies as conclusive evidence that it wasn’t in furtherance of her official duties. What is in one category can’t possibly be in the other.
But it’s pretty easy to imagine a situation in both categories. It would probably come up in many if not most legitimate academic firings. Consider really really bad teaching, or perhaps a history of research papers consistently rejected by journals, many more examples. This would clearly be speech in furtherance of official dities, yet could be the basis for firing as inconsistent with university policies.
The judge here needed a somewhat more nuanced approach to the issue.
Your counter-examples aren’t working for me. Really really bad teaching would indeed still be teaching and thus official duties but it would not violate any enforceable policy that I can imagine. You can’t just way “you have to be a good teacher” in a handbook and expect it to have any effect.
Publishing requirements could be a defensible policy and trying to get published is an official duty but failing to get published is not.
Sorry, missed the edit window. Should have been “You can’t just say …”
Yeah. A better example would be engaging in plagiarism in one’s research papers. Or discriminating on the basis of sex or race in grading student work.
If a university can’t have an enforcible policy that professors will provide high-quality teaching and author publishable research papers, is it then your position that the professor can’t be fired for these things? After all, a professor who doesn’t do these things wouldn’t (under your position) have violated any university policies. Would it then be unlawful to fire such a professor? After all, I would assume “unenforcible” means a teacher can’t be fired for it, so your position it would seem to imply that firing professors for it is simply impossible.
Would you have any explanation why there seems to be empirical evidence that it happens? I mean, there are a lot of media reports out there that professors DO get fired, at least occassionally, for terrible teaching and/or failing to publish. A recent organic chemistry professor at NYU comes to mind. Or are these media reports simply not true?
As to publications, the unpublishable papers are the speech in question, not “not getting published.” This speech was done in furtherance of an official duty, attempting to get published, yet it is the basis of being fired. Speech that fails to go far enough to hit the goal post is nonetheless still speech in furtherance of the goal.
In general, doing ones job badly is still an attempt to do ones job. Even when it doesn’t go far enough to be considered successful, it is still in furtherance of ones duties.
And yes, employers can have policies requiring people to do their jobs competently. Even when the job consists of producing sppech. Incompetent job product speech is speech that is both in furtherence of the job and in violation of the competence policy.
I’ve seen some commenters around here criticize FIRE for supposedly only defending conservatives against progressive policies. Well, this teacher seems like a pro-union, anti-confederate monument progressive to me.
So perhaps FIRE does care about free speech as a principle in and of itself. I’m not exactly surprised.
It’s a tactical decision to take a few cases of conservative-on-progressive censorship, to camoflage their right-wing clinger can’t-keep-up downscale rural white male culture-war-casualty agenda.
Damn. The old “take a few cases of conservative-on-progressive censorship, to camoflage their right-wing clinger can’t-keep-up downscale rural white male culture-war-casualty agenda” trick. That’s the second time I fell for that this week.
The problem is, the poster you are mocking is too self-unaware to get it.
You mean, they’re a mirror image of the ACLU? How dastardly!
My first view of FIRE was entirely conservative-based advocacy which was reported often in conservative news sources. My opinion, at the time, was that they were just another sort of Judicial Watch type advocacy group that was more interested in scoring right-wing points than really defending any sort of core ethics. I have changed my opinion of them. They’ve even come out against the “Don’t Say Gay” laws, which is appreciated.