In an interim victory for freedom of speech that may lead to an important precedent, a court has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against the University of Texas.
According to Richard Lowery’s complaint, filed in February 2023, university officials threatened his “job, pay, institute affiliation, research opportunities, [and] academic freedom” as part of a campaign to stop him from criticizing various stupid and/or horrific policies of the school.
An example of Lowery’s language that has the school’s administrators gunning for him is a College Fix piece, “At UT-Austin, teaching white 4-year-olds that they’re racist is funded by taxpayer dollars.”
Administrators repeatedly pressed a superior of Lowery, Carlos Carvalho, to “do something about Richard.” When Carvalho resisted, Dean Lillian Mills threatened to oust Carvalho as executive director of a Center at the school.
Officials also “allowed, or at least did not retract, a UT employee’s request that police surveil Lowery’s speech, because he might contact politicians or other influential people.”
Professor Lowery is represented by attorneys at the Institute for Free Speech, whose senior attorney Del Kolde stresses what should be obvious to the administrators: “Professors at public universities have the right to criticize administrators and speak to elected officials. The First Amendment protects such speech and, in a free society, DEI programs and UT’s president are not above public criticism.”
The goal of the lawsuit is, in part, to enjoin University of Texas officials from further threatening Lowery’s liberty to speak . . . and from acting on their previous threats.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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