Court Denies Qualified Immunity to U. Central Florida Administrators On First Amendment Claims of Prof. Charles Negy
Negy counsel: “This decision is an important first step towards holding UCF administrators accountable for their cruel acts of retaliation against Dr. Negy.”
We have been covering Professor Charles Negy’s battle with the University of Central Florida (UCF) since inception.
Of all the post-George Floyd summer of 2020 purges of academia, Negy’s case was perhaps the most chilling and abusive I saw in the many cases we covered (including my own). To this day it sends a chill up my spine to recall what he went through. University administrators not only sacrificed him to satieate the howling internet and campus mobs, the administrators became a mob unto themselves, launching an 8-month investigation to try to find something, anything, they could to justfy firing Negy. They also drummed up complaints as part of that effort. See my August 16, 2020, post for details, The administrative torment of UCF Prof. Charles Negy:
I had heard of Charles Negy, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Florida (UCF). What I heard seemed like a particularly egregious example of cancel culture that is purging academia and imposing uniformity of opinion, particularly with regard to the Black Lives Matter movement. Having looked into it more, it’s worse than I realized.
Negy’s alleged crime that sparked the controversy was two tweets questioning the orthodoxy of systemic racism and white privilege.
One tweet, which no longer is available,said:
“If Afr. Americans as a group, had the same behavioral profile as Asian Americans (on average, performing the best academically, having the highest income, committing the lowest crime, etc.), would we still be proclaiming ‘systematic racism’ exists?”
A second tweet, also no longer available, said:
“Black privilege is real: Besides affirm. action, special scholarships and other set asides, being shielded from legitimate criticism is a privilege. But as a group, they’re missing out on much needed feedback.”
Rather than debate the merits or lack of merits in his opinions, a particularly aggressive attempt to get Negy fired ensued.
There was a Change.org petition with over 30,000 signatures, a Twitter hashtag was launched (#UCFFireHim) that trended, the student Senate passed a resolution, and there were protests on campus in which the President participated….
Eventually UCF fired Negy based on the pretextual investigation. Because Negy was part of a union, he was able to take UCF to binding arbitration, and won. He was reinstated by order of the arbitrator, U. Central Florida Prof. Charles Negy, Fired After Tweeting “Black Privilege is Real,” Ordered Reinstated With Tenure and Back Pay
Based on our coverage, I was interviewed by Fox News about Negy and his case, “Charles Negy, in many ways, is the poster child for what goes wrong when DEI takes over a campus”
And then he sued. See this post for details on the history of the case and the court filing, Prof. Charles Negy, Investigated and Fired After Tweets Disputing Systemic Racism, Files Federal Lawsuit Against U. Central Florida.
UCF and its officials moved to dismiss the Complaint, arguing that the Board of Trustees was immune to suit due to sovereign immunity, and that the adminstrative officials named in the Complaint had qualified immunity.
The federal court in the Middle District of Florida ruled last week, dismissing part of the case based on sovereign immunity, lack of standing to seek injunctive relief, and dismissing some ancillary claims for failure to state a claim. But importantly, the court allowed the key First Amendment claims to move forward against the adminstrative officials finding that enough had been alleged to overcome qualified immunity.
The full Order is at the bottom of the post, but here is the key portion on Negy’s First Amendment claims (starting at page 13 of the Order):
Qualified immunity protects government officials “from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person should have known.” ….
Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s allegations against the individual Defendants only cover acts that were within the scope of their discretion as UCF administrators. (Doc. 32 at 11). This point is uncontested by Plaintiff. And the Court agrees….
Now, the burden shifts to Plaintiff to show Defendants violated clearly established law….
The Court must determine if a reasonable public official would understand that investigating and terminating Plaintiff because of his Twitter posts and the subsequently solicited complaints violated Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights….
Insofar as Plaintiff’s statements were made in the classroom pursuant to his official duties as a professor at UCF, the First Amendment affords him no protection. See Boyce, 510 F.3d at 1342–43. As to Plaintiff’s statements made outside the classroom, Defendants do not contest that Plaintiff’s Twitter posts were made as a citizen on a matter of public concern. Plaintiff posted from his personal account, which was unaffiliated with his role as a UCF professor and disclaims “Opinions are my own.” (Doc. 26 at 7). Therefore, those statements were in his capacity as a citizen rather than as a state employee. See Boyce, 510 F.3d at 1341. The exact content of the speech is not in the complaint, but Plaintiff alleges the speech argued that Black people were not systemically oppressed in the United States. (See Doc. 26 at 2). Twitter is often used by members of the public to air their views on wide-ranging topics. And to provide context, Plaintiff alleges the posts were “[i]n response to the national conversation around race.” (Doc. 26 at 8). Therefore, Plaintiff has adequately alleged his speech was on a matter of public concern. See Chesser, 248 F.3d at 1123….
Defendants argue Plaintiff’s statements caused great disruption on campus, impeding “UCF’s interest in maintaining an efficient and non-disruptive work environment.” (Doc. 32 at 13). These disruptions are well documented in Plaintiff’s allegations—including protests by current students and calls for Plaintiff to be fired, (see Doc. 26 at 8–13), and current and incoming UCF students voicing concerns about the situation on campus, (see id. at 12). Even if the speech caused protests and campus unrest, it does not necessarily equate to an inefficient functioning of the university’s public service: delivering education to its students. Disruption, debate, disagreement, and protest happen at educational institutions—whether the result of athletic wins and losses, controversial speakers and texts, or current national and global events….
The state interest here is not strong enough to outweigh Plaintiff’s interest in free expression. This is one of the extraordinary circumstances where Pickering balancing shows Defendants’ conduct was unconstitutional. The need to give in to the demands an offended, angry student body is not a basis to knowingly engage in content discrimination.3 Therefore, at this early stage of the process, Plaintiff has met his burden of pleading that Defendants’ conduct was forbidden by clearly established law. The Court will now proceed to the constitutional violation prong….
[T]he Eleventh Circuit has held that granting qualified immunity is inappropriate where the record suggests the employer fired an employee for pretextual reasons…. Plaintiff’s allegations suggest the investigation was a pretext to terminate him for his Twitter posts based on the timing of the investigation and Defendants’ remarks to the angry student population….
Accepting the allegations in the Amended Complaint as true, Plaintiff was terminated in substantial part because of his controversial Twitter posts, and Defendants have been unable to show by a preponderance of the evidence that they would have terminated him absent that speech. Therefore, a reasonable official should have known that terminating an employee based on those Twitter posts violated the First Amendment. Thus, based on Plaintiff’s allegations, individual Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s § 1983 claims at this stage of the proceedings.
Negy’s attorney, Samantha Harris, provided the following statement:
“This decision is an important first step towards holding UCF administrators accountable for their cruel acts of retaliation against Dr. Negy. It is also a vindication of public employees’ right to speak out on matters of public concern without fear of reprisal. We look forward to continuing the fight for justice.”
We will continue to follow the case.
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Comments
It appears that the University of Central Florida has a different opinion on free speech when it comes to the Hamas-supporting demonstrators on their campus.
In response to Friday’s protests UCF Spokeswoman Courtney Gilmartin said the university ”values the free exchange of ideas and the expression of different viewpoints”.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/university-of-central-florida-students-rally-for-palestinians-the-latest-in-nationwide-campus-divestment-protests/ar-AA1nK8xp
Not just UCF. After years (decades?) of supressing non-Leftist 1st Amendment rights, colleges across America have finally found a 1st Amendment issue they’re prepared to fight to the death over – the right of Leftist students to support genocide, terrorism, and commit acts of violence against Jews and non-Left Americans.
Some academics are so pleased with their little acolytes they’re rewarding their terrorists in training with A grades for the entire course and no exam required.
“Court denies qualified immunity to U. Central Florida Administrators.”
Yes. Yes! YES. As many of you know, THIS is my big bugaboo about government officials. As Sowell eloquently stated,
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
The court defined: “Qualified immunity protects government officials “from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person should have known.”
Which ledes to my question (because I’m not a lawyer), “In what universe do university admins qualify as ‘government officials?” And why??
That prompts the next step of IF they DID violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person should have known, who will go to prison for these crimes? When?
You or I would be fined into bankruptcy or go to prison for “violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights”, so will these admins?
Or is it all just two-tiered justice **clown world**
In what way are they not? A government university is part of the government, just like any other government agency; that’s why it’s bound by the first amendment, unlike private universities, which are free to censor speech as much or as little as they like. So how could its employees not be government officials?
Generally speaking, it’s not a crime. (And of course even if it were, it would be up to the government to decide whether to prosecute them.)
In general, no, we wouldn’t. For one thing, we’re not bound by the constitution, which is the laws governing government, not us. As for statutory rights, it would depend on whether the specific statute made violating it a crime or merely a tort. Generally they only make it a tort, so we could be sued but not prosecuted.
Of course there are exceptions to all of these statements, depending on the exact circumstances. But prosecution, even when possible, is always a decision for the government. Nobody can force the government to prosecute a crime if it doesn’t want to.
“We’re not a nation of laws, and never have been. We’re a nation of political will, and always will be.”
Witness the endless lawfare against Trump on the flimsiest of pretexts.
As for qualified immunity for private citizens hired to manage public institutions, fortunately the court disagrees with your analysis, milhouse.
Yes, I noticed its distinction between spheres of influence, and authority in matters of the 1st amendment, but to me that’s a distinction w/o a difference.
My neighbor manages a custodial dept. for the midwest GSA facility. That doesn’t mean she has qualified immunity to violate civil rights of fellow employees, vendors, or contractors.
I’m employed by public works to manage equipment maintenance, but that doesn’t grant me qualified immunity to block abortion clinics in defiance if FACE, or prevent entry to polling places in violation of voting rights, or defy blashemy laws against trannies using wrong bathrooms.
Heck, Jacobson’s EPP exists to sue public employees – particularly university management – who violate peoples civil rights. They’re not claiming qualified immunity, and Jacobson is WINNING because the political will is still there to enforce the old civil rights laws.
“We’re not a nation of laws, and never have been. We’re a nation of political will, and always will be.”
No, it doesn’t.
What do you mean by “private citizens hired to manage public institutions”? As opposed to whom? All government officials are private citizens who are hired to work for the government. How else does one become an official? Policemen, building inspectors, prison guards, government school teachers, they’re all private citizens who are hired to do the work they do.
And government officials doing their job have either absolute immunity or qualified immunity. Most have qualified immunity, and that certainly includes university administrators, as the court in this case explicitly affirmed. So I don’t know where you are seeing a disagreement.
Or enforce a law it doesn’t want to. See: border.
“Which ledes to my question (because I’m not a lawyer), “In what universe do university admins qualify as ‘government officials?” And why??”
In what world? Depends on the issue at hand, and who’s talking.
Universities have been playin Jon Stewart-style “Clown nose on / clown nose off.” for at least decades. They’re govt, or agents of when they want authoritah, or cover, or resources. They’re independent institutions when that’s most convenient.
Kinda like the ACA is a tax bill, except when it isn’t.
No, it doesn’t. It’s completely obvious and uncontroversial that government university administrators are government officials; what else could they be? And it’s uncontroversial that they have qualified immunity.
Things are looking up, hopefully Charles Negy, is independently wealthy and able to spend time sticking it to LibTards for many elections to come.
Should have been becomes independently wealthy.
I admire Prof. Negy’s courage in asking these questions, that could be embarrassing to people who expect not to be embarrassed.
These UCF administrators would have been among the first to have put Galileo to flame, foaming at the mouths as they berated him for being so disruptive with his idiotic theory …
The whole “systemic racism” argument has been obvious BS for a long, long time. The real measure of what people think is in actions, not words. Words are meaningless. ANd the actions of the past decades has been clear – blacks have tried EXCLUSIVELY to come INTO the UNited States, however they could, at any cost. Blacks would offer themselves up as slaves to get into America, in modern times, if they had to (since people do about the same for smugglers to transit them). And approximately ZERO blacks leave America for anywhere – even though there are tens of black populated, black-run countries all over (with those black countries outside of Africa thanks only to the slave trade). But no blacks want to leave America. Blacks only want to come to America. ANd that says everything one needs to know about how much systemic racism blacks actually believe is in America and how America ranks, in their minds, relative to anywhere else in the world, including a plethora of black-run countries.
Population flows tell the real story. I don’t understand why the leftists’ idiotic argument isn’t met with this simple and direct fact to shut them the hell up.
More important than black preferences that the left is pushing like crazy is the societal suicide the nihilistic left is trying to carry out for all of us. That is the real issue. Leftists dont’ care about blacks. They don’t like blacks and couldn’t give a hoot about what happens to them. Blacks are just weapons for the Western Left to use in their rabid pursuit of the complete destruction of the West, because Western Leftists are just some of the sickest, most deranged people to have ever waled the planet (and they know it, which is a good part of why they want to destroy everything that reminds them of themselves). Blacks are just a tool for these sick, deranged leftists to use against society.
Not really. Apartheid South Africa was not only “systemically” racist but openly, indisputably racist, and yet the exact same thing was true there. Unlike the border guards in communist countries, who were facing in and trying to prevent people from escaping, RSA’s border guards were facing out and trying to prevent people, 100% black, from sneaking in. That didn’t prove there wasn’t quite severe racism, which obviously there was. All it proved was that RSA with racism was still better than the rest of Africa without it.
Likewise with the USA. We don’t have “systemic racism”, but supposing we did the immigration stats would still be the same. So these stats don’t prove that we don’t have it. We know we don’t have it because people who believe in it have spent decades and millions desperately looking for evidence of it, and have come up empty.
So these stats don’t prove that we don’t have it.
They prove that life is better for blacks, as viewed by blacks, in America than anywhere else. Most importantly it proves that blacks prefer, in huge percentages, to live in America than to live in a black-run country. If America were as racist – systemically or otherwise – and evil as the left claims then this could not be true.
Of course, this is the same left that wants to turn the world upside down to degender English, which is about the only major language on Earth that is pretty much devoid of gender, to begin with, while the rest of the languages are soaked in gender, having it be an integral part of nearly every facet of their languages. But these leftists cry about how English is so “patriarchical” and then try and paper over their complete idiocy with a single word like “Latinx”.
Population flows prove that America is not systemically racist, or … if you have to be a devil’s advocate (as seems to be your calling in life) that the rest of the world is just that much worse for blacks than a racist America would be, rendering the idea of racism in America about the equivalent calling the poorest people in the Forbes 400 “paupers”.
As to your South African counter-example, what that showed was that South Africa was fairer to blacks than the black African countries around them. Which is true. Which is why what the world did to South Africa was evil and stupid, and now everyone in sub-saharan Africa is paying the price. South Africa is on a direct Zimbabwe trajectory.
This is obviously true.
But this is not, as evidenced by South Africa, which was indisputably racist and yet life for black people was still better there than in countries that weren’t racist but were otherwise sh*tholes.
No, it wasn’t fairer. It was blatantly, explicitly unfair. What it shows is that fairness is not the most important thing. Overall, even taking all the evil of racism into account, RSA was still a decent place to live, even for blacks, let alone for others; now it’s rapidly becoming a sh*thole for everyone. Make no mistake, life for blacks in RSA was tough; but it was tougher everywhere else.
I’m not going to argue the South African case with you since I have no idea what the numbers were. I will only say that SOuth Africa was no more tribalistic than any other sub-saharan African country, so to identify it as “racist” in some special way is incorrect. In relative terms, for Africa, it was above average in its tribalistic treatment.
As to the US, population flows certainly address the idea of systemic racism as viewed by those who are allegedly harmed by that – population flows move in TWO directions. The direction coming in addresses what non-Americans think of their future treatment in America while the direction going out addresses what American blacks actually perceive to be their treatment, here (and also what prospective immigrants think after having been here for a bit).
The fact that those population flows have been almost exclusively INTO America by blacks, and pretty much no American blacks ever even think of moving out of America, tells you how serious any “systemic racism” that might exist would be – not significant, at all. If you had any iota of systemic racism in America then you would have some decent percentage of American blacks at least considering emigrating. But you don’t. Not in the least. Not even a little bit. Because American blacks understand that those issues that the left calls “systemic racism” are not that at all. They are just reality. The left claims that the higher black incarceration rate is systemic racism but blacks understand that it’s because of the higher black crime rate. They know it. We know it. The left knows it. Everyone knows it … If blacks really thought that they were being put in jail just for being black, some number of them would be seriously trying to emigrate to some black country somewhere. But they don’t. That is what the population flow numbers tell.
All the true systemic racism in this country, what there is of it, comes from the Democrat leftists, in the form of preferential/race selective treatment, quotas, job allotments, scholarships, even lax prosecutions of the law.
And they are adding more with the racist concept of “equity,” which is dependent on race to do its racist deeds.
What we do know is that the current regime in South Africa is violently racist against whites.
systemic racism
noun [ U ]
/sɪˌstem.ɪk ˈreɪ.sɪ.zəm/ /sɪˌstem.ɪk ˈreɪ.sɪ.zəm/
Add to word list
policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, and that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race:……
Hmmm seems like actually we DO have it…. It’s just not against the race the left likes to pretend it exists for
How does this square with what I understand to be settled law on the establishment clause, that while government high school teachers on the job are prohibited from leading prayers or endorsing any religious position, because they are presumed to be speaking for the school, college professors are permitted to do the exact same thing because they are presumed to be speaking for themselves? If this is so for establishment clause purposes, surely it must also be so for freedom of speech purposes? Isn’t this why it’s accepted that professors have academic freedom but high school teachers don’t?
An excellent development! And UCF’s recent official statements justifying antisemitic speech by Hamasniks on campus on First Amendment grounds will now be crammed down their throats. Let’s hope Negy bankrupts the three involved administrators.
The question I have is why Gov. DeSantis and the Florida AG are not grilling the UCF regents and administration as to why they are continuing to fight Negy’s lawsuit, and why they have not fired or at least demoted the involved administrators. Why are Florida taxpayer dollars being used to defend this?
I have the same questions for Texas Gov. Abbott and AG Paxton WRT the UT administration’s retaliation against Prof. Rich Lowery for publicly calling out UT’s DEI Faculty Initiative as institutionalizing discrimination against white / Asian men, and UNT’s cancellation of Tim Jackson for an ACADEMIC position he took (an article he wrote demonstrating that another “scholar” ‘s CRT analysis of Schenkerian music theory was contrary to very clear and indisputable historical facts). Why are Texas taxpayer funds being used to defend such illegal wokism?
The University then realized they had found the justifiable reason to fire him:
HIS NAME!!!
you cant/wont remain a civilized country
unless you are willing to be uncivil towards those that are uncivil
“We don’t take kindly to people who don’t take kindly.”
There should be no full time administrators at any college. All such tasks should be preformed on a part time basis by as many teaching professors as it takes. What a change there would be.
I am reminded of the Tim Curry scenes in Discworld’s Unseen University. Not at all clear there is any improvement there.
OK Ron, flush the administration for this public school.
you can have an educated public
it doesnt mean the have to be publicly funded