Important University Free Speech Case from 6th Circuit

 Link to News Report

Excerpts: 

 The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Nicholas Meriwether can try to prove Shawnee State University violated his First Amendment free speech and religious rights by mandating pronouns that he said did not reflect “biological reality” and contradicted his devout Christian beliefs.

 Writing for a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Amul Thapar said Meriwether was simply communicating on a “hotly contested” matter of public concern, whether one’s sex can be changed.

“If professors lacked free-speech protections when teaching, a university would wield alarming power to compel ideological conformity,” wrote Thapar,....

“A university president could require a pacifist to declare that war is just, a civil rights icon to condemn the Freedom Riders, a believer to deny the existence of God, or a Soviet émigré to address his students as ‘comrades,’” he added. “That cannot be.”

This is a unanimous no-compelled-speech decision protecting free speech in a state university. We will discuss this a bit more when we cover the no-compelled-speech doctrine in a few classes. Students also have a right to be protected from viewpoint-based and content-based compelled speech restrictions on campus. Remember, inclusion means inclusion not exclusion, and a quality education does not seek to indoctrinate students in any ideology or worldview.

 Here is a link to the 6th Circuit's opinion.

And here is an excerpt:

Traditionally, American universities have been beacons of intellectual diversity and academic freedom. They have prided themselves on being forums where controversial ideas are discussed and debated. And they have tried not to stifle debate by picking sides. But Shawnee State chose a different route: It punished a professor for his speech on a hotly contested issue. And it did so despite the constitutional protections afforded by the First Amendment. The district court dismissed the professor’s free-speech and free-exercise claims. We see things differently and reverse.

 And another excerpt: "Purportedly neutral non-discrimination policies cannot be used to transform institutions of higher learning into 'enclaves of totalitarianism.' Tinker, 393 U.S. at 511."

Or as my friend Prof. Robert George of Princeton likes to say: 

“Ordinary authoritarians are content to forbid people from saying things they know or believe to be true. Totalitarians insist on forcing people to say things they know or believe to be untrue."