A WELL-DESERVED VICTORY – AT 3:29 P.M. ET:  One by one, those who've been abused on college campuses by local radicals are winning their cases in actual courts.  From Fox:   

A conservative political science professor who sued Marquette University after the Milwaukee Jesuit school terminated him for blogging about gay marriage won his case Friday in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The high court ruled that Marquette University should immediately reinstate former political science professor John McAdams, finding that the college failed to give him the academic freedom he is guaranteed under his contract.

The court’s conservative majority opinion ruled the private university’s faculty panel exhibited “unacceptable bias” when it fired him. The liberal justices disagreed, saying in the minority opinion that academic freedom “does not protect McAdams from discipline.”

The university had argued McAdams was not fired for the content of his 2014 post, but because he named an instructor and linked to her personal website. That instructor, a graduate student, received a barrage of hateful messages and threats after he posted her information.

“A tenured faculty member put a graduate student’s name and link to her contact information on the Internet so that people could go after her,” said Marquette attorney Ralph Weber. “That’s not academic freedom – it’s cyberbullying,”

The ruling has been eagerly awaited by conservatives, many of whom see universities as liberal hotbeds. It was also closely followed by private businesses that exercise control over employee discipline.

In the 2014 post that got McAdams fired, he discussed an incident involving a conservative student who recorded a graduate student instructor of philosophy. That instructor allegedly shut down any oppositional speech against gay marriage and suggested the student drop the class because of his views.

McAdams, who called himself a "whistleblower" at Marquette, said it was just another example of liberals trying to silence those they disagree with and then he linked to the instructor’s personal website. She received so many threats that the university decided to post a security guard outside of her classroom. The graduate student eventually moved to another university, where she had to repeat three semesters and revise her doctoral thesis.

“Had he written the exact same blog post and not included the student-teacher’s name and contact information he would not have been disciplined,” Weber argued. “He’s being disciplined for his conduct, not any viewpoint.”

But McAdams’ attorney, Rick Esenberg, said all he did was link to publicly available information.

COMMENT:  A close one, but the court decided correctly.  McAdams did not reveal a private email address, but a public one.  If someone writes something critical of me, and then links to Urgent Agenda to show how awful I am, I can't claim that the writer is invading my privacy, or exposing me to unacceptable ridicule or offense.  I've put our email addresses out there.

Glad the professor got his job back. 

July 6, 2018