Collin College professor reinstated at school in free speech lawsuit settlement

[TexasTowelie]

by Kate McGee, Texas Tribune


A Texas professor who said she was fired from Collin College in North Texas after she publicly criticized the school’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has won her job back for two more years according to a legal settlement with the school.

Education professor Suzanne Jones filed a lawsuit in September 2021 accusing the school of violating her First Amendment right to free speech and claimed they fired her for her critical comments and for her work to start a local campus chapter of the Texas Faculty Association, a statewide higher education faculty union that lacks bargaining rights.

In a settlement announced Thursday, the college agreed to pay Jones $230,000 as part of a two-year contract starting in January 2023, a much higher sum than her prior annual salary of around $66,000. But she is restricted to teaching online classes only through the college’s iCollin program, and she must resign once the contract is up in 2025. In addition, the college agreed to pay $145,000 in legal fees for Jones. Neither party admitted liability in the settlement.

“The most important thing is that professors feel they are free to speak their minds on matters of public concern without looking over their shoulders for an administrator to punish them for a viewpoint they disagree with,” said Greg Greubel, the lawyer who represented Jones on behalf of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a legal group that defends free speech on college campuses. “All levels of public employees, from Collin College to any prestigious university, they all have First Amendment rights and they all deserve to be respected.”

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/03/collin-college-professor-settlement/

[GreenWave]

1. Sounds like they can her after two years.

So her win is only for two tears and the settlement requires labor on her part.

[Mr.Mystery]

2. A good start, but professors need a real union . . . that can negotiate contracts.

Why professors don't use the NEA or the AFT and form bargaining units, I don't know.

It's partly because a lot of them think because they are such experts in their fields they can do better negotiating for themselves, and that's where they are VERY wrong.

The Union would stop women faculty from making only about 80 cents for every male faculty's dollar for instance, and it could fully protect tenure etc.

Instead, professors rely on a traditional "honor system" which administrators and boards of regents etc. are all to happy to violate and exploit.