i'd like to get right to the heart of the matter the district court must be reversed in this case because the court resolved facts in the light most favorable to the defendants or found facts which were not supported by the record in applying the pickering balancing test and in reaching the decision that the defendant early was entitle to qualified immunity and because the court misapplied the  in addition because the court should be reversed because it got misapplied the pickering balancing test and weighing the speech on the we think in this case a little confusing it seems that two ships passing  communication to the office of audit compliance and ethics at the university of connecticut that the dean's wife elaine masak our ski was receiving favorable treatment in the form of course if there were as it is referred to as nepotism in the briefing but in fact as indicated by the director of that office of compliance his  protect what is protected isis respond the question here are the protected speech was the speech concerning the conflict of interest there rose from the dean to favoring his spouse by appointing or to positions where she would receive financial benefit this was perceived by the university itself to be a thing other than we speak other than an issue you know yet in addition to the conflict of interest relating to the financial benefit there was also speech to the o a c office related potential violation of the institutional review board rules concerning obtaining information from under age students involved in the special olympics at the university of connecticut also under the direction of accelerator run by the dean's wife it called scope when the permission had not been received by the institutional review board to conduct those interviews they didn't have parental consent with the both of the other speeches you and those are pretty protected i was protected speech those two areas the speech  what we are saying is pretext of the reasons that the dean himself set forth in a letter denying the plaintiff reappointment to the position which were to one was that he did not apply for the position by submitting a c v and a letter of interest clearly clearly a pretext because the dean had offered him that job in a recorded conversation that we submitted the transcript and the recording out of there with a condition that the condition was that he indicated after discussion relating to the changes in the program which at this point dealt with merely that they would be reducing the number of hours that the students had to attend and were being paid for in the accelerator thirty hours a week the condition was that the that the my client but into that program indicate that he was going to proceed with the program with these changes to the hours at that and subsequent he did  made it clear that he fundamentally disagree with the administration's vision for the program curragh i wouldn't say that he made it clear that he fundamentally discrete vision of the program he was arguing about one specific for the maturation of the saint if you don't agree with our vision then you ought not to be the captain of the ship because as a matter of fact this would be a factual matter for the jury result at the meeting they had a full discussion about why the weinstein thought that the way in which he was operating the accelerator requiring pseudonyms to act as teams together to be at the excel arena for a certain number of hours because they were supporting businesses that this had achieved  excellent results for the for the accelerator but at that meeting the dean said well you're going to have to live with the limitation that we've imposed a thirty hour limitation in fact at the meeting he said i'm comfortable with offering you the job and he at one point says i have offered you the job but you need to get back to me and let me know that you're going to accept it under the condition that i've indicated that we're going to have this limitation in the hours and even at that point in time in that meeting as indicated in the transcript and i said to the dean go check but go check with george plus go who is the associate dean and find out from him what exactly it is that we've agreed to tell the students and communicating what the parameters were going to be for the accelerators and after you talk to george politico come back to me and if you agreed of the changes then you will have the position that is what is indicated in the record and in response to that communication these are the number of university officials who are discussing the changes to the program and also the plane has claimed that his contract had been violated by having to reapply for the position after that he signaled to the dean and writing through his chain of command  the executive director of the of the your client accepted the program was willing to stay on as director of the of the program it doesn't say anything about a change of heart as to the criticisms of the program or his willingness to abide by the vision that had been set by the by superiors well it just says he's willing to accept the the except the program and you know the question here is whether the persistent opposition to it and the strength of expression is so is a reason not to reappoint him to the program without it in a way that doesn't raise any concerns about his complaint his other complaint in response to that i think these are fundamentally questions of the jury would have to decide there was no particular format of expression that was required to indicate that he had accepted the offer to continue he was just told i want to hear back from me what's right there in black reviewed by the district court below assumes that the that the dean would not have appointed the plaintiff for specific reasons for other reasons but the offered to the plaintiff and the other reason that was set forth in the letter was not the prior obviously it was offered with the condition ok but the condition was you have to indicate that you are on board without a particular  communication and there's nothing in the record that i see and i think you've been asked to point something out that says he's satisfied that condition he sent an e mail heat he spoke through his the executive director of the c c e i who then informed the associate dean she said to him put it in writing that executive director put it in an e mail that is part of the record and indicated in the e mail that lu on his turn he said it was one as you have as you have indicated that it doesn't say he was on board but there was no particular form of communication that was requested of him and before this occurred weinstein had been in communication with the associate dean reviewing the what would be said to the incoming students heave formulated the letters exactly how he was told that evidence itself demonstrates that he was on board with the program because he was writing letters to the students exactly as he was told to do i  weinstein who even as late as june twenty second two thousand and ten is saying i'm not prepared to even apply i want to wait till after our meeting which was the meeting held july nineteenth two thousand and ten and rather counsel said there was a transcript i want to reemphasize there was not a transcript it was a syrup recording by luke weinstein which all of the depositions indicate was unintelligible in parts and that the alleged transcript which is part of the decision magistrate judge how lethal simmons in regard to the requests for admissions makes it clear it wasn't transcribed by a court reporter and in fact that transcript says it's from a july nineteenth two thousand and fourteen meeting nonetheless you do have an evidence to sixty nine the july twenty eighth two thousand and ten letter from going in early listing the reasons for his decision not to rea weinstein and he's made it clear that i have it as a two sixty nine your honor a makes it clear there is not that bion prior to this meeting you see from march of two thousand  submit your c v so we know you're on board and what you get instead after that meeting with mine singh says i'm willing to accept the position but he won't even communicate that directly though he was previously emailing with the speak here complains about nepotism charge and complains about you know certain requirements of students and the argument as i understand it is given that there were these charges and one of them directly to the d that we can't decide as a matter of law with wasn't appointed because of his opposition to the program whether he was an appointed retaliation for these project institutional review board was not protected speech the court did find it second decision that the speech concerning claims of nepotism had some limited value and then he applied correctly the pickering balancing test we have one limited instance raising a concern about nepotism but that's in the may twenty fifth two thousand and ten e mail to a trainee for shell room when the director of compliance there was never a form complaint by anyone about nepotism and that if you even look at the complaint in this matter the plaintiffs says that another professor john mathew complained to richelle r charges clear but there's an investigation triggers absolutely yes so to the extent that he's got a colorable claim of retaliation it's based on the fact that the one who complained triggered this whole investigation but dean early has testified i thought he knew about john matthew making complaints and there were number of people who are raising this upset when in the school of business documents that koski had been employed since two thousand and seven she started working there in two thousand and eight as a separate professor she did not report to the dean so when they do the investigation they say she reports the dean of the school of pharmacy in the vice provost so that's one of the court correctly found this is limited value when you look at pickering but entitle to the protections of qualified immunity defense and certainly the supreme court's decision just this week on monday in white vs poly reminds us that the conduct at issue would have to be something that was clearly a sta we have susa versus rock which was twice issued in fact judge chin was on the second they help us because they say even if you have this public concern and you look at the disruption and what the amps what the dean making the decries nepotism by the university official complaints about that that it's not to be established that that's protected speech not the way it was brought up in this early knowing that people had raised issues there were no formal complaints filed with other compliance and ethics and dean early believed in the plaintiff said in his complaint it was professor matthew who made these complaints i believe he heard about it in addition to the whole panoply of other complaints including john mayall of the time yes but as is clear and of course there was extensive deposition testimony in this regard you have do you know early speaking to the provost prior to that time about problems with weinstein's performance about problems with the students about concerns that he's actually overburdening especially foreign students who were there so there were many different reasons guess i believe that under the mount healthy defense it would be clear that dean early acted in a reasonable manner and this should not go to the jury that the court correctly looked at the pickering balancing test and although  grievance with the university after the university refused to investigate his retaliation complaint and he claimed retaliation for have for having engaged in the conduct that we're talking about  whistleblowing conduct and as part of so that grievance continued through a decision in december of two thousand and ten where the grievance was denied saying there was no whistleblowing there's no retaliation because you were properly denied reappointing for the reason university's rules in june of two thousand and ten he was only reappointed to the a p i our position these were conjoined appointments from two thousand and seven because there was all of this he wasn't deny that him not be appointed to the director position july but that after that he filed a grievance saying he was a whistleblower for raising matters of public concern at the university and there's a decision written by dean early in tw is based on anything besides the statements that resulted in the denial of the director appointment and you referred us to this grievance letter the greet the grievances letter is