The Chronicle: When It Comes to Free Speech, Is a Professor Just Another Government Employee?
Steve Sanders: The Rights of a Department Critic
By STEVE SANDERS
A case pending in a federal court of appeals in California may clarify a surprisingly murky question: Do faculty members at public universities enjoy a special privilege to speak freely about institutional matters, or, as far as the First Amendment is concerned, are they just another category of government hirelings?
Juan Hong, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of California at Irvine, sued the university after he was denied a merit salary increase in 2005. The denial was in retaliation, Hong alleges, for his history as a self-described “outspoken critic of university administrators on their mismanagement of their administrative responsibility.”
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