Education Policy, Business and Technology

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Marquette must reinstate professor it wanted to fire

Inside Higher Ed: Marquette University must immediately reinstate and pay damages to John McAdams, the political science professor who criticized a graduate student by name on his personal blog over how she handled a classroom discussion that turned to gay marriage. So ruled the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday, overturning a lower court’s determination that Marquette was within its rights to suspend McAdams over the incident in 2014.

Wisconsin’s high court split along conservative and liberal lines in the case, voting 4-2 in favor of McAdams. While the professor’s case was about an alleged breach of contract, the decision touched on the current campus speech climate, especially for political conservatives, such as McAdams. It also broke with a long judicial tradition of deferring to colleges and universities on tenured personnel matters.

Read article