Campus Free Speech Advocate On Marquette’s Attack on Warrior Blog

Donald Downs, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is one of the most important academics (and perhaps the most important academic) defending freedom of speech and expression on the university campus. Thus it’s no surprise when he weighs in on Marquette’s attempt to punish The Marquette Warrior for a blog post.

Donald A. Downs
Department of Political Science
303 North Hall
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53706

January 27, 2015

Dr. Michael R. Lovell
President, Marquette University
1250 West Wisconsin Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53233

Dear President Lovell:

I am writing to express my concern about how Marquette University has handled the case of Professor John McAdams. As of this writing, Professor McAdams remains suspended, which entails being barred from campus and prohibited from interacting with any students. These are substantial penalties that typically are reserved for the most severe cases.

My main concern in the case is very straightforward. As others around the country have publicly expressed, the due process aspects of the case have been very problematic from the start. In mid-December, when the University took its first actions in the case, Professor McAdams was not adequately informed of the charges against him, as the letter from his attorneys (made public) makes evident. Contrary to Marquette’s own rules, the letter addressed to Professor McAdams did not provide notice of what conduct had been violated, nor did it specify what procedures would be followed.

When the University finally made the offending conduct known, it stated the problem was Professor McAdams’ blog commentary criticizing an instructor’s comments to a student, in particular the teacher’s decision to not allow discussion regarding the pros and cons of gay marriage in class on the grounds that such discussion could constitute a form of homophobic harassment. A tape the student made of his post-class conversation with the teacher supports the interpretation of the teacher’s reasoning that Professor McAdams posted on his blog. But it was not until later that Dean Holz finally wrote a letter to Professor McAdams articulating this basis for the University’s action.

More importantly, the severe temporary sanction applied to Professor McAdams—being banned from campus and not allowed to teach—was issued even before an adequate review of the case was carried through. According to generally understood standards governing discipline in higher education (standards that are reflected in Marquette’s own rules), such “severe” sanctions are allowable, but only after the fundamental norms of due process have been conscientiously been adhered to. The Policy Statements and Reports of the American Association of University Professors constitute the most authoritative standards regarding what could be called “common law” for the profession of higher education. The following AAUP statement on suspensions captures the essence of my present concern in respect to due process in this case:

If the administration believes that the conduct of a faculty member, although not constituting adequate cause for dismissal, is sufficiently grave to justify imposition of a severe sanction, such as suspension from service for a stated period, the administration may institute a proceeding to impose such a severe sanction; the procedures outlined in regulation 5 will govern such a proceeding. (AAUP: Policy Documents & Reports, 1990 Edition, p. 27)

Based on my own observations and research germane to the practices of higher educational institutions, the sanction Marquette has imposed upon Professor McAdams is remarkable in this context. Suspension based on the facts in Professor McAdams’ case is exceptionally severe under the circumstances, especially given the lack of due process that appears to have accompanied the decision. The AAUP’s position is similar to this assessment:

an administration also may suspend a faculty member pending a dismissal hearing, but only if immediate harm to the faculty member or others is threatened by continuance. Before suspending a faculty member, pending an ultimate determination of the faculty member’s status through the institution’s hearing procedures, the administration will consult with the Faculty Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure [or whatever other title it may have] concerning the propriety, the length, and the other conditions of the suspension. A suspension that is intended to be final is a dismissal and will be treated as such. (AAUP, 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings)

Some critics have disapproved of the manner in which the student surreptitiously recorded his conversation with the teacher. And, of course, genuine and strong disapproval is merited regarding the threatening emails some very misguided individuals have sent to the instructor in the wake of Professor McAdams’ disclosure of the conversation. I share such disapproval. But three facts should be noted in relation to these critiques. First, Professor McAdams had no hand in making this recording. Second, to my knowledge he has made no threats of any kind to the instructor or to anyone else. Third, the topic addressed in Professor McAdams’ blog commentary addresses an important issue in higher education today: the status of intellectual diversity and free thought on campus. Numerous supporters and practitioners of higher education have expressed serious misgivings about the way in which improperly expansive harassment policies can stifle free discussion of sensitive intellectual and moral topics. Professor McAdams’ critique in this case dealt with this important concern.

I sincerely hope that the suspension of Professor McAdams is in no way related to the fact that he has publicly criticized the way the University has dealt with harassment training and free thought on campus. Unfortunately, the severity of the punishment, in conjunction with the due process problems associated with the infliction of this sanction, raise questions in this regard.

With all due respect, I urge you and the University to take the concerns others and I have raised into genuine consideration.

Sincerely,

Donald A. Downs
Alexander Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Marquette Attack on Warrior Blog: AAUP Weighs In

1133 19th Street, NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20036

January 26, 2015
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL AND USPS

Dr. Michael R. Lovell President
Marquette University
P.O. Box 1881
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-1881

Dear President Lovell:

Dr. John McAdams, associate professor of political science at Marquette University, has sought the assistance of the American Association of University Professors as a result of having been informed, by letter of December 16, 2014, that the university was suspending him with pay “until further notice” from his teaching responsibilities "and all other faculty activities" and banning him from campus. The letter, from Dr. Richard C. Holz, dean of the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences, stated, without further elaboration, that the suspension was pending a review of his “conduct.”

Responding by letter of December 22, Professor McAdams’s attorney stated that the university had not followed its own regulations governing suspension of a faculty member-in particular, that the university must provide the faculty member with notice of cause for a suspension-and that Professor McAdams had done nothing to warrant this sanction.

Dean Holz replied by letter of January 2 with an explanation of the grounds for the suspension: “Your recent actions in publicizing on the internet the name of our now-former graduate student . . . require University review.” In a November 9 post in his blog, “Marquette Warrior,” Professor McAdams had criticized a graduate teaching assistant for telling one of her students in a private conversation, surreptitiously recorded by the student, that she would not tolerate expressions of opposition to gay marriage in her classroom. Dean Holz charged that, because of Professor McAdams’s “unilateral, dishonorable, and irresponsible decision to publicize” her name, the teaching assistant had “received a series of hate-filled and despicable emails” which caused her to fear for her safety and, eventually, to transfer to another university. “You have been asked, advised, and warned not to publicize students’ names in connection with your blog posts,” the dean wrote. “With this latest example of unprofessional and irresponsible conduct we have no confidence that you will live up to any additional assurances on your part that you will respect and protect our students. . . . Accordingly, we are continuing our review of your conduct and considering all appropriate responses.”

Professor McAdams’s attorney replied to Dean Holz’s letter in a January 21 letter addressed to university counsel. He defended the propriety of Professor McAdams’s conduct, asserted that it was protected by academic freedom, and called “preposterous” a recent statement by a university

January 26, 2015 Page 2

spokesperson that Professor McAdams’s suspension and banishment from campus was necessitated by concern for the “safety” of students. The attorney also noted that the terms “dishonorable” and “irresponsible” employed by the dean to characterize Professor McAdams’s conduct are both to be found among grounds for dismissal for cause in Section 306.03 of the Faculty Statutes.

We understand that, as of this writing, Professor McAdams’s suspension remains in effect and that the administration has given no indication of when it will end.

As you are doubtless aware, our Association’s interest in the case of Professor McAdams stems from its commitment to fundamental tenets of academic freedom, tenure, and due process articulated in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. That document was jointly formulated by the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges and Universities and has been endorsed by more than 240 scholarly groups and higher-education organizations. On suspension, see the complementary joint 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings. Derivative procedural standards are set forth in the AAUP’s Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The three documents are enclosed for your convenience.

A faculty member’s suspension for a definite time from his or her primary responsibilities is on occasion imposed as a severe sanction, second only to dismissal, following a faculty hearing on stated cause. Under the 1958 Statement, amplified as follows in Regulation 5(a) of the Recommended Institutional Regulations, an administration also may suspend a faculty member pending a dismissal hearing, but

only if immediate harm to the faculty member or others is threatened by continuance. Before suspending a faculty member, pending an ultimate determination of the faculty member’s status through the institution’s hearing procedures, the administration will consult with the Faculty Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure [or whatever other title it may have] concerning the propriety, the length, and the other conditions of the suspension. A suspension that is intended to be final is a dismissal and will be treated as such.

Given the facts reported to us, it is difficult to see how members of the academic community would perceive Professor McAdams’s continuing to teach as constituting a “threat of immediate harm” to himself or others. Nor are we aware of the administration’s having consulted a duly constituted faculty body at Marquette University about the propriety of the suspension or its conditions.

The information in our possession concerning the case of Professor McAdams has come to us primarily from him, and we appreciate that you may have other information that would contribute to our understanding of what has occurred. We would therefore welcome your comments. Assuming the essential accuracy of the foregoing account, we would urge you to reach an arrangement with Professor McAdams which will return him to his teaching responsibilities rather than to allow his suspension to linger on indefinitely, an untenable situation that assumes the

January 26, 2015 Page 3

characteristics of a summary dismissal. The alternative, which we suspect neither you nor Professor McAdams would prefer, would be for the administration to attempt to demonstrate adequate cause for Professor McAdams’s dismissal, following procedures-such as those incorporated in Section 301.07 of the Faculty Statutes-that comport with AAUP-recommended standards.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Gregory F. Scholtz
Associate Secretary and Director
Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance Enclosures (via electronic mail)
Cc: Dr. Richard C. Holz, Dean, Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
Professor Timothy Melchert, Chair, Academic Senate
Professor John McAdams

A scan of the actual hard copy letter can be found here.

Marquette’s Feckless, Disingenuous Attack on the Warrior Blog / Lawyer Responds

The latest, from our lawyer Rick Esenberg of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.

WILL OBJECTS TO MARQUETTE SUSPENSION ON BEHALF OF PROFESSOR JOHN MCADAMS

University violated its own faculty procedures, failed to respect academic freedom

December 23, 2014, Milwaukee, WI – Yesterday afternoon, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (“WILL”) asked Marquette University to abide by its own rules and to honor its commitment to academic freedom. On behalf of its client, John McAdams, WILL sent a letter to Marquette University raising serious legal issues with how it has treated Dr. McAdams.

Dr. McAdams recently received a letter from the Dean of the College of Letters and Science relieving him from his duties as a tenured member of Marquette’s faculty, banning him from campus and from any activity that would cause him to come into contact with any member of the Marquette community. The letter, taking a page from Franz Kafka’s The Trial, offered no explanation of what Dr. McAdams is alleged to have done or how it might violate any of the university’s rules and regulations. When Dr. McAdams asked for an explanation, he received no reply.

Suspending a faculty member without specification of what he or she has done wrong and the process for contesting the suspension violates Marquette’s Faculty Statutes. As WILL put it, the letter to Dr. McAdams says only that “he is being investigated for some unnamed event that might violate some unidentified requirement of the university to be found somewhere in one of several documents enclosed with the letter.” While Marquette now claims that Dr. McAdams has not been suspended because “suspension” means “without pay,” its Faculty Statutes say otherwise. All suspensions are with pay. “When someone does not want to follow the rules or explain what he is doing, it’s generally a sign of a deeper problem,” said WILL President and General Counsel, Rick Esenberg. In this case, the problem seems to be the failure of the university to abide by its own guarantees of academic freedom.

Subsequent statements from the university have made clear that the basis for the suspension is a blog post in which Dr. McAdams publicly criticized a graduate instructor in the Philosophy Department for telling a student that opposition to same sex marriage would not be tolerated in her class because it would be considered offensive and homophobic. Dr. McAdams expressed the view that such statements were consistent with a regrettable trend on the left to dismiss disfavored views out of hand as “offensive” rather than debate them on the merits.

Suspension of Dr. McAdams for engaging in academic discourse would violate Section 306.03 of Marquette’s Faculty Statutes, which prohibits suspension or termination for reasons that would impair the full and free enjoyment of legitimate personal or academic freedoms of thought, doctrine, discourse, association, advocacy, or action. “The point is not whether you agree or disagree about what should and should not be said in class or how you feel about same sex marriage,” said Esenberg. “It’s not even about whether Dr. McAdams could have or should have phrased his view differently,” he continued. He explained that the University has committed itself to the robust exchange of ideas and it has promised its faculty that they will not be disciplined for participation in that exchange WILL’s letter asks that Dr. McAdams’ suspension (or whatever other thing it might be) be rescinded and that he be restored to his duties. “I’m not in this for anything but academic freedom,” Dr. McAdams said. “I just want to remind Marquette of its own principles and promises and ask that they be followed.”

****** The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty is a non-profit, public interest law firm promoting the public interest in constitutional and open government, individual liberty, and a robust civil society. Further inquiries may be directed to Mr. Esenberg at rick@will-law.

For a more detailed outline of the case, including details of how Marquette violated its own statutes, and then fibbed about what the statutes mean, check the letter that WILL wrote to President Lovell.