First Amendment and Defense of the Canon

[Michael MASINTER]

For an interesting first amendment/qualified immunity decision protecting
the right of public university professors to publicly oppose particular
curricular movements, see Hollister v. Tuttle,
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=9th&navby=case&no=9835058.
The Ninth Circuit held that an English professor stated a claim sufficient
to overcome qualified immunity by asserting that colleagues in the English
Department violated his first amendment rights by delaying his promotion
and denying him a pay raise because he publicly opposed feminist criticism
of male writers and objected to the increase in "non traditional, feminist
oriented courses" in the department.

A better style for the case might be National Association of Scholars v.
Modern Language Association.



Michael R. Masinter                     3305 College Avenue
Nova Southeastern University            Fort Lauderdale, Fl. 33314
Shepard Broad Law Center                (954) 262-6151
masinter at nova.edu                       Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel