The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied University of Alabama professor Dr. Phillip Bishop a review of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, leaving experts confused about the limitations of academic freedom and Christian professors wondering if it affects religious expression in the classroom. In a sweeping decision in June, the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case of physiology professor Bishop, along with several cases involving bans on religious freedoms. The appellate court ruled in March that the University of Alabama, and other universities within the 11th circuit, have the authority to regulate what goes on in the classroom.
Experts agree that the ruling is a precedential restriction of academic freedom in general.
Religious expression in particular was not addressed by the court and therefore was not directly affected. This is principally a free speech case. In the long run it will be hard for the authorities to say you can advocate all kinds of controversial opinions in the classroom, but not on this one subject. In the spring of 1987, Dr. Carl Westerfield, Bishop's supervisor, purportedly received student complaints about in-class comments that Bishop, a specialist in exercise physiology, had made. Though there is still disagreement on the affect of the court's ruling, the facts in the Bishop case were undisputed.