The Chronicle of Higher Education:
A federal appeals court has upheld the University of Toledo's decision to fire a high-level human-resources administrator who wrote a newspaper opinion column challenging the idea that gay people deserve the same civil-rights protections as members of racial minority groups.
In a ruling handed down on Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the administrator's column "contradicted the very policies she was charged with creating, promoting, and enforcing," and cannot be excused as merely a statement of her own views as a private citizen. The panel affirmed a lower court's decision to dismiss the administrator's lawsuit accusing the public university of violating her constitutional rights by firing her.
At the center of the case was an opinion essay that Crystal Dixon, who had been the university's interim associate vice president for human resources, published in the Toledo Free Press in April 2008.
... In upholding the dismissal of Ms. Dixon's lawsuit, the federal appeals court said she differed from other employees cited in her equal-protection claim in that her speech, and not theirs, contradicted university policies. The appeals panel said her essay "spoke on policy issues related directly to her position at the university," and the government's interests as an employer outweighed her free-speech interests in the dispute.
8 Comments
"and the government's interests as an employer outweighed her free-speech interests"
Wow, just wow. What other governmental interests out weight the individual rights of the Constitution? The government interest in stifling free speech? The government's interest in promoting the religion of atheism?
There is no sound logical or scientific basis that supports the notion that sexual behavior is identical to skin complexion. This is yet another example of how homo fascism tramples upon our civil liberties.
Ms. Dixon cited facts. Facts are like poison to the opposition b/c they dismantle their narrative.
Nothing in her essay was inflammatory, but it did challenge the opposition's narrative.
The primary tool of the opposition is to silence dissenting voices.
Ms. Dixon is now famous and can go find a much better job. Plus, if her case is appealed again to a higher court, she could win (and become even more famous). What the University of Toledo is saying is they don't want real Christians working for them. That's fine. Who would want to work 'swimming with sharks?' But they can't feign tolerance in general and fire a good worker who is just being 'diverse'. I wish someone would make me famous...
The school's policy is wrong. The leverage that its progay policy gives the gay identity group is greater than the merit of that policy on its own. The contrary was not so for a policy that did not give gay identity a supremacy over and above good governance of a learning instiution. That is, there was no basis to fire staff for op-eds that favored special treatment of the gay identity group. This school stands against liberty and equality but stands for gay favoritism.
Once again society is forewarned. This is harbinger of what the elites who influence youngster have in mind for governing all of society.
The "SSM" virus strikes another victim... as they continue to sell the talking point "My marriage won't affect you."
So immorality, sexual perversion wins again!
The courts findings are firmly rooted in precedence this time. The woman in question was in a policy making position and she came out publicly in opposition to said policy.
If this individual did not have a policy making position she would not have been ruled against at the appellate level, but this does not negate her 1st Amendment claims; which are still relevant pending appeal.