Non-retaliation

In a shockingly balanced piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Schmidt writes on the opening of the Ward Churchill trial. One piece of news (to me at least):

In a brief submitted to the court, the university argues that a ruling holding the investigation of Mr. Churchill to be a First Amendment violation “would deny public employers the ability to make informed decisions.”

The brief cites a 2006 U.S. District Court decision involving one of Mr. Churchill’s own supporters, a Colorado public employee who had claimed he was subject to a workplace investigation after expressing support for the controversial professor on a radio program [second item]. The judge in that case had reviewed applicable legal precedents and concluded that the courts had never viewed an investigation of an employee as, in itself, an act that can be viewed as retaliatory.

Glenn Spagnuolo (note correct spelling), all by himself, put an early nail in Ward's coffin.