Like most private universities, Marquette University guarantees academic freedom to its faculty. John McAdams, a tenured professor who had been with the university for almost forty years, wrote a blog post about the increasing tendency on the left to regard certain points of view as “unsafe” and objects for censorship. He used an example of a graduate instructor who had told a student that the student’s opposition to same sex marriage would “come off” as “offensive” and “homophobic” and would not be tolerated. Marquette moved to fire McAdams for the post. The subsequent litigation raised questions regarding both the judicial review of university decision-making on questions of academic freedom and what the commonly-invoked principles of academic freedom mean. Earlier, this month the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that McAdams’s contractual right to academic freedom had been violated and ordered him to be reinstated to the faculty.
Featuring:
Mr. Rick Esenberg, Founder, President and General Counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty

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