A little over a year ago I had posted the story of Sgt Christian DeJohn who had filed a discrimination lawsuit against Temple University:

March 30, 2006:

Sgt Christian M. DeJohn (PA NG) – Discrimination at Temple University, PA

The crass and blatent discrimination displayed by Temple University against Christian DeJohn is beyond belief. The amazing component about this story is that DeJohn wasn’t deployed to Iraq he was deployed to Bosnia. While serving in Bosnia DeJohn would receive emails from the History Department inviting him to anti war events, sit ins and demonstrations.

In a weekly email from the Alliance Defense Fund I was made aware of this case which is going to trial. ADF is handling DeJohns case and has filed the complaint.

Against Temple University’s retaliatory acts against a student who served as a sergeant in the Pennsylvania National Guard deployed to Bosnia shortly after 9/11.

The sergeant, a graduate student in the university’s Military and American History program, received anti-war e-mails from a professor in the department while serving overseas. When he objected, our complaint states officials refused to grant him military leave (which is guaranteed by federal and state law), dismissed him from the school, refused to advise him during his thesis completion, improperly and inaccurately reported him as defaulting on his student loans, personally and professionally denigrated him during the evaluation of his thesis, and delayed his graduation three times. In addition, the sergeant found his ability to share his political, religious, and culture views with others consistently chilled by the school’s “speech code�. A copy of the complaint can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/DejohnvTempleUniversitycomplaint.pdf.

    You can find a detailed story about Sgt. DeJohn’s nightmare at At War At Home

I had been alerted by a reader that DeJohn’s case had gone to trial. David French, the ADF attorney tells us of some strange doings by a federal judge.

In a March 22, 2007, ruling, the federal judge hearing the case gave Christian a great victory by (1) permanently enjoining the Temple speech code; and (2) granting Christian a jury trial on his claims against his professors. That jury trial started this Wednesday, April 25.

Well, the judge giveth; the judge taketh away. A day and a half into the trial, the judge granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss Christian’s retaliation claims (before the jury could deliver a verdict). There were multiple technical grounds for the judge’s ruling. Among other things, he found that Temple did not have an obligation to train its professors in the First Amendment rights of students because there was no “need� for such training, that the department chair was not a “policy maker� under relevant law, that there was not sufficient proof of a “nexus� between Christian’s speech and the department chair’s actions, and – finally – that while there was enough evidence of retaliation by Christian’s former advisor to send to the jury, his advisor was protected from suit by the doctrine of “qualified immunity.�

We obviously disagree with these rulings. First, it is interesting that the judge held that there was no need for Temple to train its professors in the First Amendment rights of students when he had just one month before struck down a major Temple policy on First Amendment grounds. Second, it is disturbing that – according to the judge’s ruling – a student can prove that a professor retaliated against him based on his protected speech, yet the professor is immune from suit.

The case has now moved to the court of appeals.  Thank you to Sgt Christian DeJohn for having the courage and gumption to take on Temple University for all student’s free speech, not just speech deemed politically correct by the education elite.

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