A court battle between the University of New Hampshire and a professor suspended for allegedly making sexist comments in his classroom has few implications for free speech at Dartmouth, College officials said.
University of New Hampshire Professor J. Donald Silva was temporarily reinstated by a United States District Court last month after being suspended by the university for a year on charges of verbal sexual harassment.
A UNH tribunal met to decide the fate of Silva after several of his female students complained that some of his comments in class were offensive.
The tribunal suspended Silva without pay and required him to attend counseling.
Silva then sued the university, arguing that it violated his constitutional right to free speech.
Judge Shane Devine ruled in favor of Silva and ordered that he be reinstated, pending the outcome of the lawsuit.
UNH officials said this decision "intrudes on universities' rights to maintain standards of student and faculty conduct in the classroom."
UNH trustees said they will appeal the decision to clear the administrators, faculty and students involved in the case.
Dartmouth has not issued any formal statement in response to the case.
"The kind of issues raised have existed for some time in higher education and at Dartmouth," College Counsel Cary Clark '62 said. But he points out that the facts of the case are very specific and hard to generalize.
He said the limits of academic freedom in the classroom have been a long standing debate both in and out of academia.
"I think it's important that faculty members have considerable latitude on how they teach a course," Clark said.
When a professor's classroom conduct is questioned by a student, usually the two parties involved resolve the situation themselves, Clark said.
"Situations where questions are not raised and therefore not resolved, I don't know how often that happens," Clark said.
College Provost Lee Bollinger, an expert on the First Amendment, said because the College is a private institution it has more leeway to place parameters on free speech.
"While Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964] applies to Dartmouth, the First Amendment technically does not," Bollinger said. "We have to decide as an institution to what extent to embrace free speech."
