Pushback: Judge rules university officials can be held personally responsible for firing a professor for his political opinions
Speech that is forbidden at the University of North Texas
A major victory for free speech: A federal judge ruled on March 11th that officials at the University of North Texas can be held personally responsible for firing a professor because they did not like his political opinions.
In his 69-page order of March 11, Judge Sean Jordan, of the United States District Court for Eastern Texas, found that university officials should have known that math professor Nathaniel Hiers’ speech “touched on a matter of public concern and that discontinuing his employment because of his speech violated the First Amendment,” before they fired him for going public with his disagreement with the left-wing concept of “microaggressions.”
The university was claiming qualified immunity for school officials in the case, meaning that the school wanted its officials to be excluded from being held responsible for their actions merely because they were acting in their position as state employees. Jordan denied the claim of qualified immunity and also denied the school’s demand to have the case dismissed outright.
You can read the judge’s order here [pdf].
The background: Hiers, having found flyers in math department’s lounge warning faculty against triggering “microaggessions” in their conversations, responded as shown in the picture above, placing one flyer on the chalk rack of the blackboard and wrote his own opinion of it above.
Ralf Schmidt, the Math department’s head, immediately criticized Hiers for doing this, and within a week fired him without notice.
Math department Chairman … Schmidt demanded the “coward” who wrote the message come forward, according to Just the News. Hiers acknowledged he wrote the line as a joke and refused to apologize. He also refused to renounce his disagreement with the concept of “microaggressions,” and refused to be subjected to “supplemental diversity training,” according to Just the News.
Only days later, the school rescinded Hiers’ teaching contract. The school used the absurd excuse that Hiers could “be perceived as threatening” others with his opposition to extremist, left-wing orthodoxy.
When Hiers requested an explanation, Schmidt wrote a letter that blatantly admitted Hiers was fired for expressing his opinion.
The judge reviewed this evidence and though he dismissed a number of Hiers’ claims he also ruled that Schmidt and other college administrators do not have qualified immunity for their actions, and that the lawsuit can go forward.
It is very clear in reading the facts of this case that the university officials were acting aggressively to silence dissent at the school, and were using Hiers as an example so that others, out of fear of losing their jobs, would toe the line.
Nor is this the only story where officials at North Texas have moved to silence debate. In another case Uuniversity officials removed Professor Timothy Jackson, the editor of a music journal (which he also founded), and defunded the journal because Jackson had disagreed with another leftist professor. When Jackson sued, he also sued both the college and the individuals involved.
And like Hiers, the court in January ruled in Jackson’s favor, allowing the suit against those individuals to go forward.
It would benefit free speech at North Texas University greatly if both of these cases decided against the college and the particular fascist goons there who do not believe in freedom of speech.
Even better however if the university found its bottom line suffering. First, the school clearly squelches free thought. Why should any parent or high school student want to waste good money attending such a school?
Second, North Texas University is a public college, and thus gets some of its funding from state funds. It seems entirely appropriate for the Texas legislature to reconsider the money it gives this school. In fact, it has been an ongoing dereliction of those legislators’ duty that they have not done so already, considering that the Jackson story broke more than a year ago.
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Speech that is forbidden at the University of North Texas
A major victory for free speech: A federal judge ruled on March 11th that officials at the University of North Texas can be held personally responsible for firing a professor because they did not like his political opinions.
In his 69-page order of March 11, Judge Sean Jordan, of the United States District Court for Eastern Texas, found that university officials should have known that math professor Nathaniel Hiers’ speech “touched on a matter of public concern and that discontinuing his employment because of his speech violated the First Amendment,” before they fired him for going public with his disagreement with the left-wing concept of “microaggressions.”
The university was claiming qualified immunity for school officials in the case, meaning that the school wanted its officials to be excluded from being held responsible for their actions merely because they were acting in their position as state employees. Jordan denied the claim of qualified immunity and also denied the school’s demand to have the case dismissed outright.
You can read the judge’s order here [pdf].
The background: Hiers, having found flyers in math department’s lounge warning faculty against triggering “microaggessions” in their conversations, responded as shown in the picture above, placing one flyer on the chalk rack of the blackboard and wrote his own opinion of it above.
Ralf Schmidt, the Math department’s head, immediately criticized Hiers for doing this, and within a week fired him without notice.
Math department Chairman … Schmidt demanded the “coward” who wrote the message come forward, according to Just the News. Hiers acknowledged he wrote the line as a joke and refused to apologize. He also refused to renounce his disagreement with the concept of “microaggressions,” and refused to be subjected to “supplemental diversity training,” according to Just the News.
Only days later, the school rescinded Hiers’ teaching contract. The school used the absurd excuse that Hiers could “be perceived as threatening” others with his opposition to extremist, left-wing orthodoxy.
When Hiers requested an explanation, Schmidt wrote a letter that blatantly admitted Hiers was fired for expressing his opinion.
The judge reviewed this evidence and though he dismissed a number of Hiers’ claims he also ruled that Schmidt and other college administrators do not have qualified immunity for their actions, and that the lawsuit can go forward.
It is very clear in reading the facts of this case that the university officials were acting aggressively to silence dissent at the school, and were using Hiers as an example so that others, out of fear of losing their jobs, would toe the line.
Nor is this the only story where officials at North Texas have moved to silence debate. In another case Uuniversity officials removed Professor Timothy Jackson, the editor of a music journal (which he also founded), and defunded the journal because Jackson had disagreed with another leftist professor. When Jackson sued, he also sued both the college and the individuals involved.
And like Hiers, the court in January ruled in Jackson’s favor, allowing the suit against those individuals to go forward.
It would benefit free speech at North Texas University greatly if both of these cases decided against the college and the particular fascist goons there who do not believe in freedom of speech.
Even better however if the university found its bottom line suffering. First, the school clearly squelches free thought. Why should any parent or high school student want to waste good money attending such a school?
Second, North Texas University is a public college, and thus gets some of its funding from state funds. It seems entirely appropriate for the Texas legislature to reconsider the money it gives this school. In fact, it has been an ongoing dereliction of those legislators’ duty that they have not done so already, considering that the Jackson story broke more than a year ago.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Going some where else for education seems a logical choice. However, with the take over of universities and colleges by the left, it is hard to select an institution which is actually supporting the 1st amendment.
The universities I attended have gone totally woke. I had my advanced inorganic chem prof (he became a ski buddy) lament the days when an A meant something (I got an A in his class).
Remember Bill Ayers and those he supported (Barack Obama) and those who supported him (Bill Clinton)!
A bit of good news but remember that is Texas.
And the rest of the country’s legal system? The madness has passed from the universities into the law firms and courtrooms.
Worth a read:
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-takeover-of-americas-legal-system?s=r&fbclid=IwAR2vF1pmLfisJreuY59sC919yktC5sLNlPt4nRNg-Fai3tnaXUH6c-cP7vQ
Remember the Warren Zevon song “Send Lawyers Guns and Money”? Looks like we’re left with guns and money (and that’s being inflated away)
The stunning thing about this story is the Chairman of the department. I would encourage everyone to scroll down through the judge’s order, and find the letter written by the Chairman to Hiers. It’s a fascinating read. One must assume, being the Chairman of the Math department, that he has received an education to the doctoral level. Yet, throughout the course of his education, he has managed to remained entirely ignorant of the 1A, particularly when it comes to public institutions. Either this, or he believed that he and his fellow leftists are so entrenched, and so control the levers of power, that he can do as he desires without regard to the law. I can fathom no other explanation for such a self-incriminating letter. Professor Hiers must have been doing the Happy Dance when he received it.