http://chronicle.com/article/AAUP-Announces-Effort-to-Shore/49100/The American Association of University Professors is embarking on a campaign to protect academic freedom at public colleges in response to recent federal-court decisions seen as eroding faculty members' speech rights....
..."The right of faculty members at public colleges and universities to speak freely without fear of retribution is endangered as never before," the association said in a newsletter sent to about 400,000 faculty members that describes the campaign, called "Speak Up, Speak Out: Protect the Faculty Voice on Campus."
In a report being issued in connection with the campaign, an AAUP subcommittee consisting mainly of prominent First Amendment scholars says that recent federal-court decisions dealing with academic freedom are "unexpected and potentially ominous."
A Ruling of Consequence
What triggered the shift in the legal climate, the report says, was a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in the case Garcetti v. Ceballos, which held that government agencies can restrict statements their employees make in connection with their official duties. The case did not deal directly with higher education, and the court majority's opinion explicitly put aside the question of whether its reasoning "would apply in the same manner to a case involving speech related to scholarship or teaching."
Nevertheless, several federal courts have cited the Garcetti ruling in subsequent decisions holding that faculty members at public colleges were not protected by the First Amendment in speaking out about matters related to their official duties.
Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held last spring that Delaware State University acted within its rights in disciplining a professor for statements made in connection with activities that were not specifically covered by his contract. In another case pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Hong v. Grant, a lower federal court held that an emeritus professor at the University of California at Irvine was acting officially—and thus not entitled to First Amendment protections against actions by his employer—when he made statements connected with the hiring, promotion, and staffing decisions of his academic department.In light of such rulings, the new AAUP report says, faculty members at public colleges can no longer count on the courts to protect their First Amendment rights and instead should work to ensure their speech is protected by institutional policies....In a written statement announcing the new AAUP campaign, Cary Nelson, the organization's president, said, "The current threat to faculty speech jeopardizes more than just individual educators" because faculty members speak out on "issues critical to society."
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