Welcome the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling on Friday in favor of a Marquette University professor who was fired for his free expression. As the AP reports, John McAdams was dismissed after publishing a blog post suggesting that a conservative student had been unfairly silenced by a graduate student lecturer during a discussion on gay marriage.
Marquette contended that because McAdams’ post included the graduate student’s name and email contact, he unjustifiably exposed her to online abuse. The AP states, “The threats were bad enough that the university posted a security officer outside of her classroom and [the lecturer] noticeably lost weight. The graduate student eventually moved to another university, where she had to repeat three semesters and revise her PhD thesis.”
I have some sympathy for the graduate student. She should not have been subjected to the abuse that followed the professor’s post.
But here’s the thing: McAdams did not call for that abuse, he simply wrote a post outlining the exchange between her and the student she was supposed to be teaching. He posted her details to allow concerned readers to address their concerns with her. And while Marquette is a private institution unbound by the First Amendment protections of free speech, its employment contract with McAdams explicitly guaranteed his academic free expression.
That matters because any basic reading and application of the contract to the facts would show that McAdams’ blog post fell under a contractually protected class of speech: commentary on a matter of public import. That being the right of a professor to articulate his belief that students deserve an education free from subject-based restrictions on their speech.
It’s embarrassing for the Wisconsin judicial system that this case had to get to the Supreme Court before it was resolved. Still, this is a good day for free speech in America.
