Featured FEN Organizations
July 6th, 2010
FIRE, AAUP, and Thomas Jefferson Center File Brief with Fourth Circuit in Support of UNC Professor
On Friday, FIRE joined the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in filing an amici curiae brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on behalf of University of North Carolina-Wilmington professor Mike Adams. The brief argues that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Southern Division erred in analyzing Adams' First Amendment claim.
UNC-Wilmington denied Adams a promotion to full professor in 2006, and, with the backing of the Alliance Defense Fund, the conservative Christian professor filed suit against the university in March of 2007. In his lawsuit, Adams, an associate professor of criminal justice and columnist, alleged that the denial was due to his political and religious views, and that the university's treatment of his application amounted to both religious discrimination and retaliation for protected speech in violation of his First Amendment rights.
This past March, the district court found against Adams, granting summary judgment to UNC-Wilmington. With respect to his religious discrimination claim, the court held that Adams had failed to meet his evidentiary burden in establishing that he had been subjected to discrimination on the basis ...