Caution: This Column Now Protected by the First Amendment

"Some told us we should just give up. Others told us we should simply accept the federal judge’s decision and resign ourselves to the fact that the First Amendment is now dead on our college campuses. But the Alliance Defense Fund took my case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in January. And, last week, they issued a landmark defense of First Amendment rights for faculty at public colleges and universities. For the first time in years, I’m getting love mail from liberals.

In my original complaint filed against the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 2007, my attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund alleged that my application for promotion had been denied in part due to the conservative political viewpoints expressed through my work as a columnist. In a ruling issued in March of 2010, the federal district court rejected our claims. With respect to my First Amendment retaliation charge, the district court found that because I had included the conservative columns in my application for promotion, the content of the columns became speech "made pursuant to (my) official duties"—and thus not protected by the First Amendment."