The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that Marquette University breached its contract with Professor John McAdams when it suspended and then terminated him for exercising his constitutional right to free speech. The Thomas More Society came to the defense of McAdams when the university punished him for exercising his academic freedom, when he wrote in his personal blog that an undergraduate student should be supported after being berated for expressing his opinion against same-sex marriage at the Catholic university. The Court ordered McAdams’ immediate reinstatement to the position he had held for 29 years.

The Thomas More Society’s amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief filed in the case, John McAdams v. Marquette University, argued that Marquette:

• agreed by contract not to burden McAdams’ First Amendment right and academic freedom
• could not retaliate against McAdams for exercising his free speech rights
• could not require McAdams to forfeit his contractual right to free speech and academic freedom

Thomas More Society Vice President and Senior Counsel, Thomas Olp, declared this a victory for all who value their constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and expression. “The Court properly held that Professor McAdams is entitled to express his opinions on issues involving university education in his extracurricular public forum. His extramural remarks naming another Marquette teaching assistant were civil, though they expressed a strong opinion, and did not hold anyone up to ridicule or shaming. To require, as Marquette did by supporting the teaching assistant and firing McAdams, that discourse must be politically correct or silenced, leads to thought control, which is anathema in our universities. They should be venues where open and free discourse is encouraged, not stifled.”

Olp continued, “The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that despite all the ‘process’ the University applied in determining to fire Professor McAdams, basic fairness to McAdams and analytical rigor was lacking. When the Court applied the correct analysis it found that ‘[t]he undisputed facts show that the University breached its contract with Dr. McAdams when it suspended him for engaging in activity protected by the contract’s guarantee of academic freedom’.”

Marquette argued that the judiciary must defer to its internal procedure for suspending and dismissing tenured faculty members. The Order from the Supreme Court of Wisconsin rejected that position: “The University is mistaken. We may question, and we do not defer. The University’s internal dispute resolution process is not a substitute for Dr. McAdams’ right to sue in our courts. The University’s internal process may serve it well as an informal means of resolving disputes, but as a replacement for litigation in our courts, it is structurally flawed.”

The lawsuit originated when McAdams defended, in a blog entry, an undergraduate student who was berated by a Marquette graduate student instructor for expressing his opinion against same-sex marriage. Following the blog post, Marquette suspended McAdams for allegedly violating the Jesuit college’s cura personalis code of behavior, and then fired him when he declined to retract his comments and apologize.

The graduate student instructor, whose verbal attack on the student was criticized by McAdams, told others via email that she believed McAdams is a “flaming bigot, sexist, and homophobic idiot” who “wants to insert his ugly face into my class business to try to scare me into silence.” But the school chose to view McAdams’ blog post as “harassment” of the graduate student, rather than defense of the undergraduate student.  

Olp said, “The Wisconsin Supreme Court decision now hands McAdams a complete victory in his suit, and corrects Marquette University’s lamentable lapse in respecting the free speech rights of its professors. We hope this valuable lesson is learned not only by Marquette, but in all universities throughout our country.  Free speech rights in our universities deserve respect and protection, not disdain and rejection.”

The July 6, 2018 order issued by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in John McAdams v. Marquette University ensures that those rights are upheld.

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