Appeals Court Hands Big Win to Advocates of Free Faculty Speech in Ruling on Pundit-Professor

The Chronicle of Higher Education: David A. French, who, as senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, helped represent Mr. Adams in the case, on Wednesday cheered the Fourth Circuit’s ruling as “a ringing victory for academic freedom,” with language that “is very clear, and not only binding in the Fourth Circuit but, I hope, quite persuasive to the other circuits.” The ruling “deals a real blow to the idea that professors’ speech is somehow wholly owned by the university. It is not,” said Mr. French, whose organization, an Arizona-based alliance of Christian lawyers and like-minded groups, took up the case partly because Mr. Adams had accused the university of religious discrimination.