Louisiana State University professor Teresa Buchanan was fired for … well, we don’t know exactly.
She never received the specific allegations against her, but was informed she had somehow violated the university’s sexual harassment policy, even though no students actually alleged that she had sexually harassed them.
Buchanan, who taught a prekindergarten-3rd grade teacher certification program at LSU, allegedly used profanity or sexual humor in her class. Some of the students in that class, who are all adults supposedly being prepared for the real world, couldn’t handle her teaching style, and complained.
LSU’s broad definition of sexual harassment, which includes “unwelcome verbal, visual or physical behavior of a sexual nature” doesn’t limit such allegations to those that severely affect a student’s learning. Sexual harassment need only “unreasonably” interfere with a student’s education. Even that doesn’t seem to be the case with Buchanan, who may have been guilty of offending some students, but not making education a living hell for them.
So Buchanan is suing, alleging LSU violated her due process rights when it fired her from her tenured associate professor teaching position without informing her of the specifics of the allegations. She also alleges the school violated her free speech rights. The harassment policy used by LSU mirrors the one suggested by the Education Department, which civil liberties groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education have challenged as threatening to the First Amendment.
“FIRE predicted that universities would silence and punish faculty by using the Department of Education’s unconstitutional definition of sexual harassment — and that’s exactly what happened at LSU,” FIRE’s Director of Litigation Catherine Sevcenko said. “Under this broad definition of sexual harassment, professors risk punishment for teaching or discussing sex-related material, be it Nabokov’s Lolita or the latest episode of The Bachelor. Now Teresa is fighting back to protect her rights and the rights of her colleagues.”
Buchanan had tried to explain her lessons to LSU administrators, and in March 2015, it looked like they had listened. A faculty committee had unanimously decided she should not be fired, but that she should change her teaching style. But the Board of Supervisors ignored this suggestion and simply fired Buchanan, saying it was just following “advisements” from the Education Department.
LSU is not the only school to adopt such broad policies, but perhaps with Buchanan’s lawsuit other schools will take note.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
