BY JOERG TIEDE
An investigative report is out today in a case that crystallizes the current right-wing assault on higher education. It involves issues that the AAUP has been working on intensively this year: faculty harassment and exaggerated controversies over free speech on campus.
The case concerns Courtney Lawton, a graduate student and part-time lecturer at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. At the beginning of the fall semester, Lawton protested an on-campus recruitment table of Turning Point USA, a conservative organization that maintains the Professor Watchlist. Her protest was recorded by the undergraduate student staffing the table, and the resulting video was widely disseminated online—one of the primary strategies of right-wing groups in their attacks on higher education—leading to threats against her and the university.
While Lawton was under vicious attack for her protest speech, state legislators launched a campaign of political pressure on the university, suggesting that Lawton’s conduct toward the student staffing the recruitment table was representative of a campus climate hostile to conservative views and calling for her dismissal. The Nebraska Republican Party filed open-records requests for email correspondence related to the case, and “campus free-speech” legislation was introduced in a clear example of legislative overreach.
Under pressure, the university administration suspended Lawton from her teaching responsibilities and subsequently refused to reinstate her to the classroom, thus extending her suspension to the end of her term of appointment. This action was tantamount to summary dismissal, as the administration did not afford her any academic due process. An AAUP investigation found that “the conclusion seems inescapable that the basis for Ms. Lawton’s dismissal was related to the political content of her speech and thus may have violated her academic freedom, a conclusion that stands unrebutted absent the affordance of a dismissal hearing.”
We’ll be discussing the case during a Facebook Live tomorrow, May 11, at 1:30 EST. Click here to RSVP.
Campaigns of targeted harassment against individual faculty members and legislative attempts to impose misguided rules on institutions of higher education are on the rise. The AAUP believes that democracy thrives on dissent, critical inquiry, free speech, and free research. That’s why we investigated the case at the University of Nebraska and why we’ve developed resources for you to use in fighting harassment of faculty and misleading “free-speech” legislation on your own campus.
Read the full investigative report.
Ronnie Green certainly needs to fully answer questions about what political pressure the university was subjected to, why no due process was followed, and how this indefensible decision can be justified. Any surveillance video used in the punishment must be released to the public. Clearly, firing instructors for cause without any due process is a serious threat to academic freedom. And firing them for their extramural activities is particularly suspect. But we should also focus on this issue of whether Lawton “blocked” access to the Turning Point table. This is a public area where Lawton had the same right to talk to anyone as the Turning Point people. Even if she approached people headed to the table, Lawton is perfectly free to do that. There would only be a possible violation if Lawton physically prohibited people from going to the table, which is almost impossible for one person to do. It’s notable that despite all the right-wing misinformation about this case, no one had accused Lawton of blocking access. The university needs to show their alleged evidence, reinstate Lawton immediately, and then follow due process if it thinks she deserves to be fired.