Unreal

From the shake your head in disbelief file: Arizona Professor Faces Termination for E-Mailing George Washington's Thanksgiving Address

Today’s press release discusses one of the most egregious cases of viewpoint discrimination I’ve come across during my time at FIRE.

The case involves Walter Kehowski, a math professor at Glendale Community College—part of the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) system—who e-mailed a single Thanksgiving message to the entire MCCCD community. On the day before Thanksgiving, Kehowski sent an e-mail containing the text of George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” over the district’s “announcements” listserv. Kehowski had found the Proclamation on Pat Buchanan’s blog, and included a link to that webpage in his e-mail. That citation would have dire consequences.

Within weeks, five MCCCD employees complained that Kehowski’s e-mail was “derogatory” and “hostile” because the link he’d included—if you decided to open it—led to a page where Buchanan also posted his opinions of immigration. MCCCD soon held an Initial Assessment of the complaints, and decided that since Kehowski’s e-mail was not work-related but rather expressed a “social comment,” he had violated MCCCD’s e-mail policies, which limit e-mails to work-related information. MCCCD reacted on March 9 by forcing Kehowski to cease teaching, placing him on immediate administrative leave, and recommending that he be terminated.

But Kehowski had used the same “announcements” listserv that many employees use to send general-interest e-mails. Other non-work-related e-mails sent recently include an announcement about Arizona’s 20th Annual “Sisters in Crime” mystery novel celebration, quotes about Women’s History Month, ads for how to purchase goats for orphans in Uganda, and reminders about the health benefits of bananas. While the e-mail about bananas is admittedly neutral, the other e-mails could indeed be said to constitute “social comments.” Yet FIRE is not aware of one single other MCCCD community member who has been placed on forced administrative leave or faces possible termination for sending such e-mails.

Obviously, they are attempting to remove the professor because he has shown "conservative tendencies." At some point this fanatical enforcement of viewpoint discrimination becomes virtually identical to implementing test oaths.

Were I to subscribe to substantive due process I'd start to think there was an additional constitutional violation here beyond the ones outlined by the folks at F.I.R.E.