A short excerpt from the >10,000-word Jensen v. Brown, decided yesterday by Ninth Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon, joined by Judges Richard Paez and John Owens:
Plaintiff Lars Jensen, a math professor at [Truckee Meadows (Nevada) Community College], voiced concerns about a policy change that he argues caused the math department to lower its curriculum standards. He alleges that soon after, Jensen was reprimanded, pressured to resign from another faculty member's tenure committee, given two consecutive negative performance reviews, and required to undergo an investigation and termination hearing…. We conclude that the district court erroneously dismissed Jensen's First Amendment retaliation claims….
In June of 2019, the Board of Regents for the [Nevada System of Higher Education] adopted a new "co-requisite policy." Under the co-requisite policy, students would be placed in college level math classes even if they needed remedial math instruction. Students who needed remedial math instruction would be required to take remedial classes as "co-requisites" alongside college level classes, instead of as "pre-requisites" before taking college level math courses.
To maintain course completion rates under this policy, TMCC's math department decided to lower the academic level of certain math classes…. Jensen sent an email to the math department faculty in which he expressed concerns about the department's new standards for coursework….
Julie Ellsworth, the Dean of Sciences at TMCC, facilitated a "Math Summit" to discuss the co-requisite policy's implementation "with the community." During a question-and-answer session following a presentation from Ellsworth, Jensen attempted to comment on the co-requisite policy. Ellsworth cut him off and announced that the question-and-answer session had ended. After Jensen again attempted to speak, Ellsworth directed him to the "parking lot," a whiteboard that was provided for Math Summit participants to post comments.
