The University of Minnesota University Senate is moving to add protections for the academic freedom rights of its faculty members.  The policy changes are in response to a series of recent court rulings, most recently Renken v. Gregory, et al. that limit protections for faculty members' speech when it is made in the course of their official duties-which for a faculty member includes everything from teaching to publishing research to participating in the governance of their institution. 

In a 2006 ruling, Garcetti v. Ceballos, the U.S. Supreme Court seemingly removed some protections for speech by public employees made in the course of their work duties.  While the majority was careful to note that

there is some argument that expression related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional constitutional interests that are not fully accounted for by this Court's customary employee-speech jurisprudence. We need not, and for that reason do not, decide whether the analysis we conduct today would apply in the same manner to a case involving speech related to scholarship or teaching,

subsequent rulings have used this precedent to limit the speech rights of faculty. 

The most recent example came from a UW-Milwaukee professor argued that his pay was reduced in retaliation for his complaints about how a grant was being handled by the institution.  While such criticism would normally be part of the academic freedom and shared governance rights faculty members have, the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals found for the University relying in part on the Garcetti precedent (Renken v. Gregory, et al.).  Unfortunately, this 2008 decision was not the first to use Garcetti in finding teacher or faculty member speech to be unprotected.  

This certainly is not the first time that members of the higher education community found ways to protect expression rights when unfortunate court precedents did not.  In California, Oregon and Illinois students worked with legislators to respond to the 2005 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Hosty v. Carter, which removed protections for publications funded by the institution, by passing free expression acts.  Hopefully, more campuses will follow Minnesota's suit and protect faculty expression where the courts apparently won't.