Marquette professor suspended for criticizing a graduate student online gets his day in court

MILWAUKEE -- A Marquette University professor suspended for criticizing a graduate student online sued the university over the discipline. On Thursday, February 2nd, both sides made their case before a judge.

The university's lawyers said John McAdams caused the graduate student to suffer. McAdams' lawyer said he is being punished for defending and exercising academic freedom. McAdams runs a conservative blog and has done so for years. It's a post from November 2014 that led him to Thursday's court appearance -- the post criticized a graduate student who was the instructor of a philosophy class. During the class, the instructor told a student gay marriage would not be debated among a list of controversial topics. Afterward, the student secretly recorded the teacher. In the interest of fairness, we are not identifying either person.

"There are some opinions that are not appropriate, that are harmful, such as racist opinions, sexist opinions. And quite honestly, do you know if anyone in the class is homosexual?" the teacher was heard saying on the recording.

The student took the recording to McAdams who posted about it. He included a link to the instructor's personal blog -- and she was overwhelmed with nasty messages.

Marquette University suspended McAdams -- and a condition of his return was an apology. He refused. McAdams' attorney said punishment for nothing specifically against university code violates his academic freedom. "It might be one thing if Dr. McAdams had attacked her or gone after her in some way that transgressed the boundaries of decency. But that didn't happen here. He disagreed with her," said Rick Esenberg, McAdams' lawyer. Marquette's lawyers said McAdams violated the university's values by naming the instructor and providing a link to her personal blog, which made it easier for people to harass her. "He knows what happened to her and, over the last two years, again and again, he continues to blog and continues to use her name," said Ralph Weber, Marquette University's lawyer. McAdams says his 39-year career is at stake -- one he would like to end at Marquette. "As you can imagine, I have very little respect for the people running Marquette, but the students are an entirely different matter," McAdams said. Both sides were seeking summary judgment Thursday -- meaning victory without a trial. Judge David Hansher will issue an opinion as soon as he can. If he does not award the case to either side, it will go to a jury trial.