A college has halted a case against a professor accused of discrimination for refusal to punish offensive speech, but critics say the school still will not acknowledge its unconstitutional actions.
Rhode Island College Associate Dean Scott Kane stated in a decision released Thursday that he believes no “further formal action” is required in the college’s trial of Dr. Lisa Church, a professor who refused to censor “constitutionally protected speech.”
“While the decision is welcome news for Professor Church and her family, RIC [Rhode Island College] still has not recognized the unconstitutionality and injustice of its actions,” said David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which wrote to RIC on the professor’s behalf and brought public scrutiny to the college’s actions. “This hearing never should have happened.”
In February, Church, coordinator of the college’s cooperative preschool, refused to punish two mothers for making comments that offended another mother.
In April, the offended mother filed a “discrimination” complaint with RIC asking for “some action to be taken” against Church and others at the preschool.
The complaint reads in part:
On Feb. 19, “several mothers of children enrolled in the preschool engaged in a conversation about the country’s welfare system. Two of the mothers opined that in their personal experience ‘Spanish people and blacks’ received more and better welfare benefits than whites and that this was the result of the welfare system’s bias against whites. The complainant disputed the assertion and added that it was difficult for a white American to understand what it is like to be a racial minority in this country. The complainant, who is white, added that she had not understood this until she married an African American and had a child. One of the other students responded by expressing her disapproval of ‘making interracial children.’ The complainant was offended by her fellow students’ comments and sought to discuss the matter at the next Advisory Board meeting by placing a note in the ‘suggestions, questions and complaints’ envelope.”
Although RIC college counsel Nicholas Long initially expressed reservations about the legality of proceeding with the complaint, he later reversed himself.
RIC then advanced the formal hearing process, informing Church that she faced charges of “hostile environment racism.”
French contends “RIC was clearly trying someone for ‘discrimination’ for refusing to punish another person’s speech.”
His group, FIRE, wrote to RIC President John Nazarian twice, asking him to call off the proceedings.
FIRE said it reminded the president that “freedom of speech is protected at public institutions even if the speech is highly offensive or arouses people to anger” and that “the defense of the right to free speech should never justify administrative investigations.”
The ACLU of Rhode Island also wrote to RIC in support of Church, but Nazarian refused to stop the hearings.
FIRE contends that while Associate Dean Kane recommended the proceedings end, RIC “still fails to understand the serious First Amendment issues present in this case.”
Immediately after the release of Kane’s decision, the group said, Nazarian issued an e-mail to the RIC community stating “the matter in question was not an issue of free speech, the First Amendment, academic freedom, discrimination, or censorship” and that RIC “actively supports free speech for all.”
“RIC is in denial,” French said. “This case is entirely about the First Amendment. The initial complaint was filed because one person was offended by another person’s speech, and RIC acted on the complaint because it is governed by an unconstitutional speech code. Constitutional freedoms will never be secure at RIC until its policies change.”
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