College Officials Should be Responsible When They Violate People’s Rights

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | July 7, 2021 | George Leef

[karpov]

Here is a recurring situation on American college and university campuses—an official acts in a way that violates the constitutional rights of students or faculty members, usually by trampling on the First Amendment.

The aggrieved party then sues, naming the institution and the officials who approved the actions as defendants. Those lawsuits often succeed, with the court declaring that the conduct in question was indeed illegal and requiring that the school pay damages and attorney’s fees to the plaintiff.

All right, but what about the individual defendants?

They are almost never held personally liable for their actions. That is because of a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity, which the Supreme Court declared in a 1982 case, Harlow v. Fitzgerald. Qualified immunity says that public officials are presumptively immune from personal liability when they act in ways that violate the rights of others, unless the law was so clear that they must have known that what they were doing was illegal.

The Court’s reason was that some officials (particularly police) often have to make quick decisions in situations where the public interest would not be well-served if they had to worry about personal liability. As the Fourth Circuit put it in a 1992 case (Maciarello v. Sumner), qualified immunity protects public officials who made “bad guesses in gray areas.”

Over the years, qualified immunity has expanded so that it today covers higher education administrators when they violate the constitutional rights of students or faculty members. Why should it, though? They don’t have to make spur-of-the-moment decisions when they decide how to treat students or faculty over things they’ve said or done that they regard as inappropriate.

[Tell It Right]

Excellent point. They’ll keep doing what they do as long as the taxpayers pay the lawsuits for them violating someone else’s rights.

[protoconservative]

The NCAA Sports regulatory system is not that far away from also violating students rights to commerce in a meaningful way. How many years did the NCAA repress football and basketball players from a income for sneaker and likeness endorsements? Well all the way until July 1, 2021. The potential candidate for senate Herschel Walker likeness was used by the NCAA for the better part of a decade without any compensation.

[myerson]

These people are only in power because the STOLE the election. They are like pirates sailing a captured ship not their own. Why are they allowed to continue on without opposition?

[shalom aleichem]

They are directly responsible, but their employers usually pick up their tab. We should protest that. Why should taxpayers bail out those who violate constitutional rights under color of law?

[shalom aleichem]

They are directly responsible, but their employers usually pick up their tab. We should protest that. Why should taxpayers bail out those who violate constitutional rights under color of law?