UPDATE, July 30: The University of Illinois caved and reinstated Professor Howell, a great victory for him, the Alliance Defense Fund, religious liberty, and the 7th Amendment.
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The great folks at the Alliance Defense Fund are showing why the 7th Amendment right to a jury trial in civil suits is the "sword and shield" of religious liberty in the U.S. today. Two cases illustrate the point:
(1) San Jose/Evergreen Community College District fired biology professor June Sheldon after she objectively answered a student's in-class question on the grounds that a different student claimed to be "offended" by her answer, even though the answer comported with the official curriculum and a district policy on academic freedom. ADF filed a lawsuit on her behalf in June 2008 with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The district argued that its professors have no free speech rights in the classroom, but a federal court rejected that argument. This week, the district caved, will remove Sheldon's termination from her record, and pay her $100,000 for lost work. Read more about this case and download the filings here.
(2) ADF is threatening to go to court to protect the religious liberty of University of Illinois Professor Dr. Kenneth Howell. The ADF website explains the issues:
Dr. Howell correctly explained the Catholic Church's teachings on homosexual behavior, i.e., that homosexual conduct is morally wrong, as set forth in the Catechism of the Church. He took care to explain the difference between same-sex attraction and homosexual behavior, and to frame the position in the context of natural moral law and Scripture. Later, he followed up his remarks with an e-mail to the students in the class further clarifying some of the points he'd made. Shortly afterward, university officials received an anonymous e-mail complaint from a student who was not even in Dr. Howell's class, who claimed to have been "offended" by what Howell said. Howell was never even given the chance to explain or defend what he'd said. Instead, he was summarily relieved from his teaching duties and dismissed from his teaching position. (At this point, the professor hasn't been technically dismissed but isn't teaching, either.)
The case is attracting attention from across the spectrum of political thought, but I don't see one obvious point: If it weren't for the rights enunciated in the 7th Amendment for the two professors to sue the two colleges, or if those rights had been compromised in some way, both professors would be out of their jobs, period.
And the cases raise the following questions: If the Supreme Court decisions in the Iqbal and Twombly cases to arbitrarily and severely restrict federal pleadings to something "plausible" had been in effect, would ADF have been able to file the suit that protected Professor Sheldon? If ADF files a suit to protect Professor Howell, will it be able to meet the new, restrictive Iqbal-Twombly standards, or will the suit be dismissed by a judge who decides on his own what is "plausible?" And is that really where we want to go in protecting religious liberty? Will Congress address the arbitrary decisions by the Court to restrict the pleading standard, as suggested by the Alliance Defense Fund, or will more Americans lose their religious liberty because their 7th Amendment rights are compromised?
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