Posted on 03/05/2025 1:12:01 PM PST by karpov
Courts have repeatedly ruled that colleges and universities violate the First Amendment rights of professors when they retaliate against them for having said things administrators dislike. Nevertheless, such cases continue to arise. Victories for freedom of speech have not stopped the abuse of power by intolerant officials.
The reason why is that those officials don’t have to fear personal liability for their actions. The school might lose, but the officials won’t have to pay for the costs they caused. The money to pay damages comes from the school, not from them. And why is that? The answer is “qualified immunity.”
Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine created by the Supreme Court in a 1967 case. The Court thought it wise to shield public officials from liability when their actions violated the rights of citizens. The theory was that officials might be deterred from doing their jobs if they had to fear lawsuits when they had to make quick decisions later adjudged to have been wrongful. That might make sense in some circumstances, but the qualified-immunity defense has grown to the point of absurdity. College officials now routinely say they are immune from personal-damage suits when they violate the rights of faculty members.
A prime example is the case Josephson v. Ganzel.
Dr. Allan Josephson had been professor of psychiatry and the chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine since 2003. Under his leadership, the number of faculty had grown, and the number of patients seen had increased. He received perfect scores on his annual reviews for years running and authored many books and articles.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Remove all Federal funding from universities and the hordes of bloated leftists and wokeness dominating them will die immediately.
YES!!! Render the dam*ed college administators responsible for the damage they do!
most of the rest of us are held responsible for our conduct
Government employees are also defended by their organizations.
Taxpayers pay for their defense.
Behavior would change a lot if they were personally liable.
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