We have yet another teacher suspended or put on leave for merely expressing her opinion of Black Lives Matter on her personal Facebook page. After Tiffany Riley wrote that she does not agree with the BLM, the Mount Ascutney School Board held an emergency meeting to declare that it is “uniformly appalled” by the exercise of free speech and Superintendent David Baker assured the public that they would be working on “mutually agreed upon severance package.” The case magnifies concerns over the free speech rights of teachers on social media or in their private lives. As a public employee, Riley could seek judicial relief rather than a severance package under the First Amendment.
Continue reading “Vermont Principal Put On Leave For Not Agreeing With Black Lives Matters”
We have been discussing the destruction of public art and history monuments by mobs who are often allowed to carry out such acts without police intervention, a problem that pre-existed the current protests (
Yesterday, we discussed the effort to remove one of the country’s most distinguished economists from his position because 
It seems that University of Chicago professors are much in the news this week. We 
Gordon Klein, an accounting professor in the Anderson School of Business, has taught at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) for almost 40 years. He is now suspended and under police protection in his home. The reason? Klein refused to exempt black students from his final exam and sent a pointed rebuttal to students asking for the “no harm” exam. The response was certainly mocking in tone, more so than I would have considered appropriate. The school has launched a formal discrimination investigation. However, the suspension, investigation, and death threats against Klein reinforce the fear of many in the academy of a raising orthodoxy on campus and a lack of support for faculty involved in controversies.
Louisiana State University Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences 
Dr. Mike Adams, a professor of sociology and criminology,
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the role of familiar groups like Antifa in the violence following the death of George Floyd. 
University of Minnesota Law School Professor Francesco Parisi
We have previously discussed the uncertain standard applying to teachers and professors who are subject to discipline for social media postings. It often seems that any termination or discipline is based upon subjective or majoritarian views of the content of postings. The latest such case is out of Catholic University of America where adjunct professor John Tieso has been suspended after tweets ridiculing Barack Obama and Kamala Harris after working for the school since 2013.