Curmie had no sooner returned to writing than a case that he’d written about years ago (here, here, and, very briefly, here) returned to the public sphere. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-2 to overturn a lower court ruling and reverse the firing of Professor John McAdams of Marquette University.
 |
| Dr. John McAdams |
You can read the synopsis in the trial transcript linked above, or there’s good coverage in a series of stories in the Chronicle of Higher Education, but they’re behind a paywall (one of their stories nonetheless linked here). There are, of course, good stories in Inside Higher Education and in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. There’s also a lengthy play-by-play in the form of the letter from Dean Richard Holz to Dr. McAdams, explaining the rationale for the university’s initiating procedures to revoke the professor’s tenure and terminate his employment. Here are the basics:
In October of 2014, Marquette grad student Cheryl Abbate was teaching a class in Theory of Ethics. The subject of gay marriage came up in discussion, and Abbate allegedly proclaimed that “everyone agrees on this, so there’s no need to discuss it.” A student approached her after class, surreptitiously (and unethically, if not illegally) recording the interchange. The student, who opposed gay marriage, was upset that Abbate essentially described any such dissent as homophobic, and that she suggested that he drop the class if he was going to make such comments. Abbate then asked if the student was recording the conversation; he tried lying about it, but then admitted that he was, and threatened to take the issue to her “superiors.”
He subsequently brought the recording to various university officials, and ultimately to his advisor, Dr. McAdams, who, with the student’s permission, wrote about the incident in a blog post, identifying Abbate by name and linking to her own blog, which included her contact information. McAdams trots out the trite, but not meritless, complaints adopted by many on the right, that “Opinions with which [liberals] disagree are not merely wrong, and are not to be argued against on their merits, but are deemed ‘offensive’ and need to be shut up,” and that “in the politically correct world of academia, one is supposed to assume that all victim groups think the same way as leftist professors.” McAdams also quoted Charles Krauthammer’s assertion that the “appropriate term” for the pursuit of such an agenda is “totalitarianism.”
McAdams also sent the blog post to Campus Reform, a conservative site that seeks, in its own words, to “expose liberal bias on America’s campuses.” The piece was subsequently picked up by Fox News and other larger media outlets. Whether because of or independent of this added circulation and publicity, Ms. Abbate was subjected to no little abuse, some of it even threatening; she transferred to the University of Colorado. (The transfer may or may not have been independent of the situation described here, but certainly these events did little to keep her at Marquette.)
Dean Holz suspended McAdams (with pay) in December, and then started the process to fire the professor in January. The case was forwarded to a hearing committee of seven tenured faculty, who unanimously agreed that McAdams had “violated his obligation to fellow members of the Marquette community by recklessly causing harm to Ms. Abbate, even though that harm was caused indirectly. The Committee concludes that the harm to Ms. Abbate was substantial, foreseeable, easily avoidable, and not justifiable.”
Of course, one of the committee members, Lynn Turner, had, prior to being named to the committee signed an open letter in the Marquette Tribune, in which the co-signers “deplored the treatment of… Ms. Abbate and deeply regret that she has experienced harassment and intimidation as a direct result of McAdams's actions…. Perhaps worst of all, McAdams has betrayed his role as a faculty member by pitting one set of students against another, by claiming the protection of academic freedom while trying to deny it to others, and by exploiting current political issues to promote his personal agenda.” Yet somehow the committee managed to unanimously (!) reject the idea that Dr. Turner should recuse herself. Despite this, the committee concluded that:
…the suspension of Dr. McAdams… with no faculty review and in the absence of any viable threat… was an abuse of the University’s discretion granted under the Faculty Statutes. The purpose of the suspension appears [to have been] to impose a summary sanction on Dr. McAdams to satisfy the demands of external and internal audiences. This is an improper use of the interim suspension power that violated Dr. McAdams’ right to due process under the Faculty Statutes.
That said, the committee recommended suspension, and the university appeared willing to accept that outcome, provided Dr. McAdams showed a little contrition. McAdams rejected that solution, however, and sued. So here we are.
There are no good guys here. The undergrad student illicitly recorded a conversation he had no right to record, and at least initially lied about doing so. Ms. Abbate did indeed use her status as instructor to stifle the free expression of ideas. Dr. McAdams unquestionably behaved unprofessionally by identifying a graduate student (even though she was functioning as an instructor at the time of the incident) by name in his blog, and his active dissemination of the essay to partisan websites was reckless. (This from the Don’t Shit Where You Eat files.) Dean Holz made some allegations he had precisely zero chance of proving in his letter to McAdams, and accuses McAdams of implying (!) things that aren’t true; worse, his assertion that McAdams should have consulted with a litany of university officials before publishing his blog piece really is an attempt to chill free speech and academic freedom.
Had Dr. Turner a modicum of ethical sensibility or indeed common sense, she would never have agreed to serve on the committee, and the other committee members should never have supported her refusal to recuse herself. The majority opinion of the Supreme Court, written by Justice Daniel Kelly, declares that “The undisputed facts show that the University breached its contract with Dr. McAdams when it suspended him for engaging in activity protected by the contract's guarantee of academic freedom.” “Undisputed”? Yeah, no.
Amid all this slop there is backstory: McAdams has been a thorn in the Marquette administration’s side for years, and had been admonished for numerous incidents in the past. In his own words, “There is a history here. I have in numerous instances before made trouble for Marquette by exposing things going on at the university.” But all this does is add to the list of offsetting arguments. Marquette claims, for example, “He has more than 3,000 blog posts over more than a decade and was never disciplined for any view he had on any subject. If he had written the exact same blog post and left the graduate student’s name and contact information out of it, he would not have been disciplined.” Of course, this could just easily have been the last straw, or the university may have been looking for a way to get rid of this cranky professor who was already past normal retirement age.
Significant support appeared on both sides: the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), for example, sided with Professor McAdams, whereas the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities favored the university. Ultimately, we’re looking at a series of “yes, but” arguments.
Professor McAdams was charged with causing harm to Ms. Abbate, although he made no threats, and indeed stopped short of suggesting any remedy for her “misconduct.” It is reasonable to suggest that he should have foreseen the potential for others to threaten her, but it’s also true that, short of incitement, he ought to have the right to express his own opinion; the actions of others are beyond his control. As Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic wrote three and a half years ago,
Holtz’s [sic.] decision to hold McAdams responsible for her harassment sets an alarming precedent: that faculty members will be held accountable not only for their words, but for any efforts to intimidate or harass those they publicly criticize. By this logic, a professor who criticized a college football player accused of rape, or a fraternity member who chanted “No means yes, yes means anal,” or a college Republican running an “affirmative-action bake sale” could be stripped of tenure based partly on whether that student got nasty emails. Only myopia can account for failure to see the threat to academic freedom.
Professor McAdams has freedom of speech rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment and by the tenets of academic freedom implicit in the granting of tenure. These rights are not limitless, however. In Marquette’s case, tenure may be revoked in the case of “serious instances of ... dishonorable, irresponsible, or incompetent conduct.” So, does this case qualify? Frankly, it’s a close call. The conduct for which Ms. Abbate came under fire from Dr. McAdams was performed in her capacity as a course instructor. Still, she was also a graduate student, and the Dean’s desire that senior faculty should mentor rather than publicly condemn students is not misplaced. The nationwide effort to grant graduate teaching assistants employee status (for the purpose of collective bargaining, for example) may actually have worked against Ms. Abbate in this matter.
It is also true that, as a Catholic university, Marquette can reasonably expect its faculty to adhere to a stricter set of principles than a public institution could demand. In other words, were McAdams not tenured, it would be pretty clear that the university could fire him if they so desired. And the faculty committee’s unanimous recommendation ought to count for something. As Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wryly notes in her dissent, “Apparently, the majority thinks it is in a better position to address concerns of academic freedom than a group of tenured faculty members who live the doctrine every day.” Still, the majority’s claim that such a hearing board cannot substitute for the actual judicial system of the state also rings true.
Basically, it all boils down to this: John McAdams is, to coin a phrase, an asshole. But so is Curmie, at least from time to time, and he prefers not to be fired for that. And Curmie is a tenured professor who writes a blog the higher-ups might not always like, so there’s a little bias here, although too many of the arguments—at both the university and the judicial levels—seem couched in liberal/conservative terms, and Curmie certainly doesn’t share Professor McAdams’s politics.
Are the free speech rights of tenured academics absolute? Of course not, although the burden of proof to restrict those rights had better be pretty significant. Did McAdams behave unprofessionally? Absolutely. But did he behave sufficiently unprofessionally to have his tenure revoked? Tough call, but it’s the tough calls that matter. If, Gentle Reader, you look at Curmie’s earlier posts on this topic, you’ll see a full-throated endorsement of Dr. McAdams’s position. That resolve has dwindled a little over the last couple of years, but, ultimately, Curmie remains more of a civil libertarian than a liberal when it comes to the 1st Amendment. Free speech is messy. That’s rather the point. I’m going to endorse the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision.
No comments:
Post a Comment