Market data provided by Factset. The federal district court said preserving the freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think is both an inherent good, and an abiding goal of our democracy, according to the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division. Public university fired professor for calling microaggressions At the beginning of fall semester, Phillips gave his students their first assignment: Write a paper on the history of pandemics and epidemics in North America, from the time of Christopher Columbus to Covid-19. In a written response to questions, Matkin told The Chronicle last year that he did not recall this purported conversation from 2017 and that he had never threatened the professor. and help keep the future of the Observer, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our. Michael Phillips talks about the extensive history of racism in Dallas. Jackson was then told by UNT Provost Jennifer Cowley to submit a plan on how to address a report from an ad hoc panel outlining problems with his actions but a week before the deadline he was given he learned that he had been removed from the journal and that university funding for the journal and Center for Schenkerian Studies was being halted. In response to Ewell, whose arguments had shaken up music theory, Jackson organized a symposium to be published in the annual Schenkerian Studies. ", In a statement to Fox News, the University of North Texas said that federal court is "not the place" for "baseless allegations. Fired Prof. Lora Burnett Wins Settlement from Collin Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. Sentimos mucho las molestias causadas. April 27, 2020. Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password. Collin College Doesnt Post A COVID-19 Dashboard. Get exclusive coverage about business in Denton County in your inbox twice a month, with a focus on the housing market. Some clouds. For every one who sues (and wins) there are a thousand more who bow their heads and submit. Following the publishing of the symposium, supporters of Ewell began calling on UNT to fire Jackson, including at least 18 UNT faculty members and several grad students. Stay up to date with all of the sports news coming out of Denton-area high schools. The latest casualty: Michael Phillips, a history professor who has taught at Collin for 14 years and who said he had overwhelmingly positive evaluations from students. Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in. "The defendants published a statement calling Professor Jackson a 'racist' who engaged in 'racist actions,' which is false statement of fact.". This policy contains many such examples including referring to America as a melting pot or saying there is only one race, the human race. It includes clear political speech like calling affirmative action racist. They are all microaggressions and could be used as the basis for university action or intervention. 2021 Alliance Defending Freedom is a registered 501(C)(3) Charity. Ross earned his Juris Doctor in 2016 from Vanderbilt Law School, where he served as president of the Christian Legal Society and executive authorities editor for the Vanderbilt Transnational Law Journal. In an extended example of these dynamics, Ewell criticized the influential late music theorist Heinrich Schenker as an ardent racist and German nationalist and asked why no one links Schenkers documented white supremacist views to his approach to music theory. (Jackson says he put out a call for papers with the entire Society for Music Theory. Higher Education News, Opinion and Careers | Weekdays, Quick Summary of the Week's Higher Ed News | Fridays, Admissions and Enrollment News, Opinion and Careers | Mondays, Diversity News, Opinion and Career Advice | Tuesdays, Student Success News, Ideas, Advice and Inspiration | Weekdays, Hundreds of UNC Professors Oppose Overreach, New College Board Denies Tenure for 5 Professors, Why Floridas Public College PresidentsShouldResign. Jackson received a message from his provost the same day, directing him to develop a plan to address the panels findings by Dec. 18. North Texas Its OK. Which is something that has long been a hallmark of university faculty the ability to be in the marketplace of ideas.. Langhofer said the court likely ruled against the motion to dismiss because Hiers suit included emails from his superiors explaining the reasons for his termination, as well as documents regarding Hiers admission that he did write the message and wasnt apologetic for doing so. Ukraine said it successfully protected Kyiv by intercepting 15 of 18 cruise missiles launched overnight, but major damage was reported away from the capital. Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal advocacy group that represented Professor Nathaniel Hiers in a lawsuit against UNT, announced the settlement Both Schenker and his wife knew very well that they were considered Other by mainstream German-speaking Viennese society, as his Jewish students would be later in America, Jackson wrote. The truth is exactly the opposite, the new math was outright sabotage and along with the whole language reading reforms within 10 years the university sci-tech programs were full of foreign students taking places the US students mis-educated under these reforms could not qualify for. Get the latest, most up-to-date breaking news in your inbox. ", The statement added, "We will raise these points to the federal appeals court. Louis K. Bonham writes at Minding the Campus: Another Hopeful Sign: Hiers v. Board of Regents. We take no position on the accuracy of Rungs assertion regarding the Weidlichs, and we need not, the decision states, referring to the two parties involved. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. His suit, filed this month in federal court in University of North Texas Allen, Jackson's lawyer, said this week that the defendants in the case falsely claimed that Jackson engaged in racist actions for "doing nothing other than publishing articles, some critical and some in support of a Black scholar. We previously discussed concerns over free speech on the campus of the University of North Texas, including the canceling of an event on child gender transitioning. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. At least 100 students at Loyola University in New Orleans last week protested the firing of the director of its African and African American Studies program. Every Wednesday morning, get the week's top crime stories in Denton from the Blotter in your inbox. That lack of clarity (and the subjectivity of some of the term) creates a chilling effect on free speech. 2 min read. For example, it is a microaggression to inquire (presumably after someone says that they were followed in a store): Are you sure you were being followed in the store? AfterEwells paper was published, Jackson planned to host a symposium with the Journal of Schenkerian Studies that he co-founded at UNT and called on members of the Society for Music to write papers responding to the paper. independent local journalism in Dallas. A humanities professor, Audra Heaslip, has also alleged that she was fired for her public concerns about the handling of the pandemic. or redistributed. or subscribe. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. I have students say I inspired them, Phillips told The Chronicle. That is a reference to a controversy when a copy of the schools microaggression policy was called garbage on a blackboard in the graduate lounge. Another recent decision (Hiers v. Board of Regents of the University of North Texas) amplifies this latter point. He sued and the court sided with him. We won't share it with anyone else. Earlier this year, a math professor named Dr. Nathaniel Hiers was fired by the University of North Texas after leaving a comment on a chalkboard that made fun of Thank you. An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. But Phillips said he refused to lie about the circumstances surrounding his departure. Fired for his views, UNT math professor brings free speech lawsuit North Texas Mathematics Prof Sues School After Being Fired for Criticizing Flyer on Microaggressions. North Texas Mathematics Prof Sues School After Being Fired for Criticizing Flyer on Microaggressions Something is clearly wrong at UNT. Posted by Mike LaChance Thursday, March 17, 2022 at 10:00am 4 Comments The University of North Texas seems to place more importance on being woke than the Constitution. It is, therefore, of no moment to the resolution of this appeal whether the conclusion Rung expressed was correct. Mark Levin: Critical race theory is poison, Texas Gov. WebUNT is a student-focused, public, research university located in Denton, Texas. Campus Reform the #1 Source for College News Legal Statement. 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Other groups, including faculty members at Yale University and the University of Michigan, also denounced the symposium, which did not include work from any scholars of color or a submission from Ewell. Lo sentimos pero la pgina A federal district court recently ruled Nathaniel Hiers, a former University of North Texas adjunct math professor fired after he criticized flyers decrying microaggressions, can continue his lawsuit against the university. Lacking such courage, they may secretly want a court to force them to do the right thing to avoid being targeted or tagged as racist by the mob. A member of the bar in Virginia, Kansas, and Arizona, Langhofer is also admitted to practice in numerous federal district courts. Hiers was a math professor at the University of North Texas who was fired after he made a joke about campus fliers on microaggressions, calling them garbage. In But in Texas, Republican politicians have forbidden public colleges from requiring the wearing of face masks. At the late 2019 meeting of the Society for Music Theory, Philip Ewell, associate professor of music at Hunter College of the City University of New York, delivered a plenary address called Music Theorys White Racial Frame. His message was that music theory has been and continues to be overwhelmingly white, that whiteness has shaped the discipline and that this should be interrogated. Collin College administrators were uncomfortable with Phillipss taking a stand on the Confederate-statue issue, the professor told The Chronicle last year. Under the bill, colleges and universities in the UNC system could only offer contracts lasting up to four years. Hiers v. Board of Regents of the University of North Texas. Some students in Phillipss class were unhappy with his recommending masks, and they complained to the administration. Copyright 2008-2023, Legal Insurrection, All Rights Reserved. Hiers found flyers in the math department faculty lounge about microaggressions, and then wrote a quip on the chalkboard: Please dont leave your garbage lying around, with an arrow pointing to the flyers, which werent official university documents, the lawsuit says. TheHierscase should serve notice to public university administrators that while wokeism may be the accepted narrative of the faculty lounge, the law is not so easily ignoredand that continued violations may well result in their being held personally liable. Schenkers wife died at Theresienstadt, following his own death in 1935 from natural causes. As one of Texas' largest universities, we offer 112 bachelor's, 94 master's and 38 doctoral degree programs within the university's 14 colleges and schools. Jackson, who founded the Center for Schenkerian Studies at North Texas and its Journal of Schenkerian Studies, did not agree with Ewell, to put it lightly. Judge OKs professor's free speech case against U North andIP Policy, U. In mylast piece, I covered the recent decision inCoalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School District, where the court declared that a new admissions process for a highly-regarded STEM-focused high school was unconstitutional, finding that scrapping the old merit-based process in favor of racial balancing (based on Kendian equity principles) was clearly illegal under decades of Supreme Court authority. Low 51F. A former Palm Beach Atlantic University professor fired after a parent complained he was indoctrinating students with lessons about racial justice has filed a Thats the message the university should be modeling., MORE: Professors advised to treat classroom microaggressions as assault, Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter. That will stop these educational potentates. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. professor fired A case that rocked the music field last year is back -- this time in the form of a defamation and retaliation lawsuit against the University of North Texas, one of its graduate students and 17 professors of music history, theory and ethnomusicology. The University of North Texas and President Neal J. Smatresk are clearly unwilling to take a stand to protect dissenting views on campus. KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. All of these are free speech cases. intentando acceder se encuentra fuera de servicio temporalmente debido a un Now, the university itself has lost a critical motion in a free speech case brought by Mathematics Professor Nathaniel Hiers after his contract was not renewed due to his criticism of the schools microaggression policies. Diseado por Students and faculty were not content to protest such events but acted to prevent others from hearing opposing views. Copyright 2023 Inside Higher Ed All rights reserved. Public universities cant fire professors just because they dont endorse every message someone communicates in the faculty lounge, Michael Ross, legal counsel for the alliance, said in a press release. We have previously discussed microaggression policies and the concerns over free speech over their fluid definition and controversial examples. VIP | [email protected], By Brooke Colombo Good, I hope that the University of North Texas (sounds like a step or two below University of Pheonix?) ends up losing and having to settle on that wrongful termination suit. AUSTIN In October, University of Texas senior Candace Kosted came across a tweet that unnerved her. Jackson is seeking a trial by jury and compensatory and punitive damages to the full extent authorized by law.. University of North Texas Professor Fired for Criticizing Last week, the college agreed to pay former professor Lora D. Burnett $70,000, plus legal fees, to end a First Amendment lawsuit the instructor filed after her termination. He was later canned. Texass department of agriculture is run by Sid Miller, a Republican who was first elected to his role in 2014. Langhofer said the suit seeks damages and lost wages for Hiers as well as reinstatement as an adjunct faculty member in the UNT math department. The message it sends to everyone else is that universities cant abridge the freedom of speech. By contrast, Jackson said that classical music was central to his own grandparents, who were Jewish immigrants. Phillips says he was let go for reasons similar to three other colleagues dismissed last year. Timothy Jackson, distinguished university research professor of music theory at North Texas, thinks it is, at least in his case. ADF sues Univ. We were told we could not use any language at all, urging, recommending, expressing hopes that students would wear masks, Phillips said. The university panel issued its report in November, finding that the symposiums production did not meet the standards of best practice in scholarly publication. The panel's suggestions involved transforming the journal from a somewhat decentralized, mostly graduate student-led publication to one with a clear editorial structure, transparent editorial policies and a faculty editor in chief. Derechos mantenimiento regular y actualizacin en la base de datos de nuestro ", "The defendants have formally notified the court of appeals that we are appealing the district courts decision to deny our motion to dismiss," a spokesperson for the school said. On Monday, Phillips announced on Twitter that hed been fired. mantenimiento regular y actualizacin en la base de datos de nuestro Instead, theyre modeling that you can be punished for challenging someone in power.. It also faults the 17 faculty members who openly criticized Jackson for endorsing and linking to the graduate student petition in their own letter. ", Clearly, Allen said, accusing Jackson of racist actions for doing nothing other than the ordinary work of academic scholarship qualifies as defamation., Asked if Jackson was trying to censor his critics, Allen said defamation law is not censorship, as defamatory statements are not protected by the First Amendment. Calling the defendants statements opinions doesnt make them so, he argued, as they were assertions of fact that are subject to disproof -- that Timothy Jackson engaged in specific racist actions.. ", WESTERN CAROLINA STUDENTS FACE DEATH THREATS, FACULTY MOCKERY FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST 'WOKE' TRAINING. We went from a near standing-start to the moon within the original time frame (before the end of the decade) and on-budget. U. In that same email, Brand suggested that the journal would be best served by having a single editor in chief who oversees all aspects of the journal and who is a faculty member at another institution. He also said he would support Jackson in his previously expressed desire to relocate the journal outside to another institution. I am ashamed of my Alma Mater and have cancelled all donations to the Alumni Fund. "UNT has failed to protect these rights and has allowed this situation to progress, forcing Jackson to file this suit. The university attempted to backtrack from the concept of an investigation in a response, telling Jackson via email that it had an interest in the complaints against one of its publications, and the discretion, if not the obligation to look into them. The graduate student being sued, whom Jackson suspects of spearheading the student petition, according to court documents, did not respond to a request for comment. Make sure you're prepared with the Denton Record-Chronicle's coverage of Denton County's key races, and the candidates in the running for them. Invalid password or account does not exist. Subscribe for free to Inside Higher Eds newsletters, featuring the latest news, opinion and great new careers in higher education delivered to your inbox. In her lawsuit, Burnett argues that Collin College leaders use a custom or practice of terminating professors who speak out on matters of public concern and that the school's practices are unconstitutional. Government employees have the right to have their own politics, Burnett told The Texas Tribune in an interview this week. By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy,Terms of Service. Abbott tells Chicago mayor to take complaints on border crisis to the White House, Biden admin's coordination with environmental groups to ban gas stoves under investigation by Cruz, Comer, Virginia Gov. He just kind of smirked, and thats when he said, I just want to make sure you can keep doing your job.. College records show that Phillips was disciplined for that tweet, with administrators writing in a discipline form that he had publicly posted the information without context.. Email Reporter Bill Zeeble at [email protected] . The costs of the judgements and legal fees should be shared by the individual perpetrators not the schools, therefore the taxpayers. Accepting the allegations as true, the Court concludes that Hiers plausibly alleged that the university officials violated his right to freedom of speech.. The 24-year-old man accused of shooting a 6-year-old girl, her parents and another neighbor after a basketball rolled into his yard in North Carolina is now in police custody. UNT retaliated against him, engaged in content- and viewpoint-based discrimination, and attempted to compel speech from him. Police arrest man who allegedly shot 6-year-old when basketball Ross previously served on the Center for Academic Freedom Team,defending the First Amendment freedoms of college students and student organizations on university campuses. The University of North Texas seems to place more importance on being woke than the Constitution. Error! Federal court rules fired professor's suit against UNT can continue. There are forbidden subjects, like talking about masks.. You have /5 articles left.Sign up for a free account or log in. Langhofer said Hiers intended to launch his academic career at UNT, eventually working his way up from an adjunct professor to a tenured faculty member. Ewell, whom Jackson is not suing, declined to comment on the case. Things began to devolve over a year ago -- with someone else being called a racist. Michael Phillips, a professor of history at Collin College, in Texas. Texas He suggested that perhaps I could say I was leaving voluntarily. College officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Phillipss accusation. They have created an atmosphere of total fear and distrust, Phillips told The Chronicle on Monday. In that case, Oberlin faculty members, students and even some administrators accused the local bakery of racial profiling after an employee chased after a Black student who was allegedly shoplifting. All rights reserved. Texas professor dismissed after recommending students mask. Rather than defend Professor Jacksons academic freedom, the University of North Texas and its administrators joined the witch hunt, the lawsuit says. Palm Beach Atlantic University English Professor Samuel Joeckel was fired in March after a complaint that he was 'indoctrinating' students by including racial justice lessons in his class. In 2017, for instance, the Tennessee Court of Appeals reversed a lower courts decision in a case involving a woman's Facebook post accusing a family of being white supremacists because they had pro-Confederate stickers on their car. The alliance is representing Hiers. Apparently Go Woke, Go Broke is becoming a challenge to administrators, not a warning. Hiers emphasizes that in no way, shape, or form did he deface or vandalize the fliers, only that he poked fun at them. You can follow him on Twitter @bzeeble. An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account. Court: Professor may proceed with lawsuit against university after Matkin, who enjoys strong support from some Republican state lawmakers, has dismissed the dangers of Covid-19, and some former and current employees say the president quashes any form of faculty dissent, while pushing out employees who dare to challenge his authority. The fired professor is challenging two sets of UNT policies: the unrestricted authority to punish faculty, and the Faculty Misconduct and Discipline Policy. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Texas university pays $165K to professor fired for writing a joke in A group of graduate students in music petitioned their dean, demanding a formal response to what they described as the journals horrendous lack of peer review and clear lack of academic rigor. They asked North Texas, as publisher, to dissolve Schenkerian Studies and consider removing faculty members who had used it to promote racism.. Federal court rules fired professor's suit against UNT can Faculty, Students Ask Why.