A Louisiana State University law professor who was suspended after making some expletive-laden political comments in class suffered a setback last week when an appeals court reversed a lower court order to reinstate him.
Louisiana`s First Circuit of Appeal handed down the decision Feb. 20 in professor Ken M. Levy’s lawsuit against LSU for suspending him last month despite his tenured status and support from many of Levy’s students. In a previous ruling, the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge ruled that LSU must reinstate Levy without any further limits on his freedom of expression.
But the appeals court reversed the decision, finding that the lower court effectively issued a mandatory preliminary injunction without proper evidentiary hearings. LSU contested the district court’s action as improper, and the appeals court agreed.
“A mandatory injunction is so named because it commands the doing of some action,” the First Circuit appeals court said. “A mandatory preliminary injunction may not be issued unless the party seeking the injunction proves by a preponderance of the evidence at a full trial on the merits – in which the taking of evidence is not limited – that he is entitled to the injunction.”
In turn, the appeals court reversed the Jan. 30 order calling on LSU to immediately reinstate the plaintiff to his teaching position at the Paul M. Hebert School of Law.
Despite the appeals court’s conclusion, Levy’s attorney stressed that the court’s decision still leaves in place protections from further disciplinary actions.
“We believe strongly in the protections of the First Amendment and 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and the protections of the Louisiana Constitution,” attorney Jill Craft told the Louisiana Record in an email. “While the court of appeal unfortunately felt it did not have the power to order professor Levy back to the classroom, it nonetheless left fully intact several important prohibitions against LSU further violating his rights.”
A new LSU “academic freedom” policy developed by the university in the wake of Levy’s legal filings creates more barriers to unfettered classroom discussions, according to Craft.
“Instead of promoting academic freedom as the flagship university and as an institution of higher education, LSU, instead, has taken an approach clearly designed to further stifle the free speech and due-process rights of its faculty and students,” she said. “Especially in higher education and law school, it is extremely important for there to be robust debate, the free exchange of ideas and political opinions without fear of having the governor or any other elected official getting his feelings hurt or smothering a divergent viewpoint because he may disagree.”
Gov. Jeff Landry was the butt of some of Levy’s humorous political comments at the heart of the litigation, and the governor criticized the district court’s decision siding with Levy in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“Ruling is absurd!” Landry said in the post. “It not only ignores the law and the facts, it disrespects the broad base of Louisiana citizens who are demanding a level of professionalism in our universities. The judge ignored the facts, the law and the Constitution – but that is what we have come to expect out of the 19th JDC. I am confident that the First Circuit or the (state Supreme Court) will correct this!”
The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reported that the Baton Rouge university has had two previous incidents involving free-expression disputes involving a professor and graduate student instructor.