Court Opinion

ID: 9460940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:02:57.732954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:50.077167
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
Once again this court has attempted to draw a legal fence line between the right of a teacher to exercise valid expression under the first amendment and the right of a sovereign state to operate a college in a manner in which its elected and appointed officials think will best serve its state interests. But to draw such a fence line is difficult, if not impossible, for surely it must meander with considerable flexibility and accommodation. The majority has, however, apparently agreed to a straight line allowing totally unrestricted academic speech, has protected it with barbed wire and words, and has left the state entangled. I cannot agree and must dissent for the exigencies of the case we here consider dramatically indicate, to me, a different boundary.
I am in complete accord with my Brother Seth’s views in dissent. Here was a college strangling in the administrative tape of discord and disruption termed by an independent analyst as faculty divisiveness. This imbalance was a continuing one with the interest of the state in an efficient college approaching, and rapidly, an absolute zero. Faced with this dilemma the majority is convinced that the Board of Regents, and particularly the president, simply but unconstitutionally imposed a subjective will upon the plaintiffs. To me, this rationale and the reasoning of the majority opinion consists of imposing original and appellate findings and conclusions, perhaps allowable by the record but in no way so dictated, and in direct contradiction of the factual determination of the trial court. The term divisiveness found by the trial court to premise the subject discharges describes and includes in part the discordant efforts of the plaintiffs to impose their subjective views upon the operation of the college. My Brother Seth summarizes the case well when he states: “The Board of Regents had the authority to take a position and to carry out its decision, and this it did within constitutional limitations.”