Case: Individual Employment Rights/First Amendment (W.D. Wash.)

A Washington federal district court denied several officials of the University of Washington’s motion to dismiss a First Amendment retaliation claim of a faculty member who included a disruptive statement regarding indigenous land ownership in his class syllabus, finding that the speech was related to scholarship or teaching, and involved a matter of public concern, but that a fact-sensitive Pickering v. Board of Education balancing test can’t be employed at this stage of litigation.