The Chronicle: U.S. Appeals Court to Weigh the Speech Rights of Public-College Faculty Members
In a case emerging as a major test of the free-speech rights of faculty members at public colleges, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is being asked to decide whether Northeastern Illinois University could legally punish a professor who advised student activists by deeming her own statements of protest to be job-related.
The dispute involves a lawsuit filed against the university by Loretta Capeheart, a tenured associate professor of justice studies who has advised the university’s student Socialist Club and was denied promotions and a faculty award after clashing with administrators over her protest activities. The American Association of University Professors is concerned enough about the potential ramifications of a ruling against Ms. Capeheart that on Thursday it filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the appeals court to hold her speech to have been protected under the First Amendment.
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