CalAware Today: Is Academic Freedom a First Amendment Right?

CalAware Today: Is Academic Freedom a First Amendment Right?

Is Academic Freedom a First Amendment Right?

FREE SPEECH -- As federal courts read the First Amendment, public college and university teachers have no free speech right to talk about gay issues in the classroom and can be let go for such behavior—in Mississippi, that is. But not in California, where the contrary is the case. Should the interpretation given to a bedrock item in the Bill of Rights depend on whether a federal court sits in a red or a blue state? New York Law School Professor Arthur S. Leonard says the U.S. Supreme Court's pointed avoidance of addressing whether academic freedom is a First Amendment right for public higher education faculty has left some serious confusion.

. . . June Sheldon . . . was teaching a class on heredity at San Jose/Evergreen Community College. A classroom discussion of genetics led to a student question about whether homosexuality was a genetically-determined trait. Ms. Sheldon and the students differ about her responses, but some students found what she had to say objectionable. One student complained to the dean that Prof. Sheldon had stated that there "aren’t any real lesbians" and that "there are hardly any gay men in the Middle East because the women are treated very nicely."

Although Sheldon, an adjunct professor on a term contract, had already been offered and accepted teaching assignments for the next semester, the dean sent her a letter stating that she had investigated the complaint and had concluded that Sheldon was "teaching misinformation as science," so the course assignments were revoked.

Judge Whyte observed that the Supreme Court in Garcetti had ruled that a public employee’s job-related speech generally does not receive First Amendment protection because the government is entitled to control what is said by its employees in their job functions when their speech will be attributed to the government. In that case, the employee in question was a government attorney who was disciplined for publicly criticizing an action of his office in the context of litigation.

Judge Whyte pointed out that the Supreme Court had refrained in