[Vision2020] UI President Vetoes Faculty Free Speech Rights

[lfalen]

Nick
Thanks for supporting free speech.
Roger





-----Original Message-----
Subject: [Vision2020] UI President Vetoes Faculty Free Speech Rights
From: "Nicholas Gier" <ngier006 at gmail.com>
To: vision2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Date: 08/07/14 21:11:08

 Greetings:


The new UI president has not got off to a good start: first, an inappropriate comments about students; and second, this slap in the face to the faculty.  The full version is attached as a PDF file.


The short version appeared in the Daily News this morning and the long version may appear in the Idaho State Journal on Sunday.  I say "may" because the new publisher supports the ISU president, the worst Idaho campus executive in my 42 years in the state.


Nick


UI PRESIDENT VETOES FACULTY FREE SPEECH RIGHTS
By Nick Gier, President, Idaho Federation of Teachers
 
            On April 29 the UI general faculty voted 176-0 to support their right "to speak or write freely without institutional discipline or restraint on matters pertaining to faculty governance and university programs and policies."
Appealing to precedents at North Idaho College, Boise State University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of California, I proposed, drawing on their policies, this new language to a faculty committee in November 2012.  I want to thank UI faculty leaders who helped make this unprecedented unanimous vote possible.
            If we had been at a medieval university or its contemporary European fully democratic equivalent, this vote would have been the end of the matter.  At American universities, however, there is veto power at every administrative level with no option of overrides. I ask you to savor the irony for faculty who are entrusted to prepare students for life in a democratic society. 
We could not celebrate our free speech rights until we heard from our new President and the Board of Regents. At its June 18 meeting the Regents voted 7-0 to express "concern" about the new language, and they returned it to President Staben for his decision.  Relying on the UI Counsel's opinion, Staben vetoed the proposals, primarily because these changes "could result in slanderous or libelous speech or writing going without remedy within the institution."
Citizens libel their public officials every day, but campus collegiality keeps uncivil comments to a bare minimum. I believe that Staben's fears are unfounded, and they are obviously not sufficient grounds to deny faculty basic First Amendment rights.  If UI administrators believe they have been libeled, then they can sue for damages in state court.
In its 2006 decision Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court ruled that public employers can limit their employee's constitutional right to free speech in the performance of their official duties. Many lower court judges have cited Garcetti against faculty who were fired for speaking out against their administrators. 
These judges, however, have ignored Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote that this decision would not "apply in the same manner to a case involving speech related" to university professors. Anthony Souter concurred: "I have to hope that today's majority does not mean to imperil the First Amendment protection of academic freedom in public colleges and universities, whose teachers necessarily speak and write 'pursuant to official duties.'"
On March 28, 2013, federal judge Lynn Winmill ruled that former ISU professor Habib Sadid had "no First Amendment right to comment on faculty administrative matters without retaliation."  Even though the ISU Faculty Senate voted overwhelming for Sadid's reinstatement, ISU President Arthur Vailas terminated him for insubordination on October 30, 2009.
In his decision Winmill limited academic freedom to research and teaching, and that allowed him to conclude that "at no point did Dr. Sadid tie his grievances to his research, scholarship, or teaching."  If the new language for UI had been in place at ISU, Sadid, an award winning teacher and researcher, would still be serving Idaho's students.
On September 4, 2013, free speech rights for professors were finally affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  In 2010 WSU professor David Demers filed suit alleging that he had been disciplined by WSU administrators for criticizing plans to restructure academic programs in the Murrow College of Communication.
WSU had argued that Demers' critique was not related to scholarship or teaching, so it was not protected by the Constitution.  The judges disagreed, ruling that Demers was exercising his First Amendment rights.
The UI Counsel appears to be unaware of either campus or legal advances on this issue, and the fact that UI faculty reside in the Ninth Circuit. So it is imperative for UI faculty to stand firm on this language that protects professors' First Amendment rights.
Nick Gier of Moscow taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.
 
 
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