You can't engage in legally defined hate speech without consequence. But now if you're a Wisconsin college professor you can by name decry fellow employees in your institution who try to tamp down hate speech, even if the college and its faculty committee think your actions constituted unprofessional conduct.
That's because the ultra-conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court just ruled that an equally conservative professor at Marquette University is perfectly within his rights to bully a graduate-student MU instructor online and by name, to the point that she received death threats from his online followers. Because academic freedom.
This is a horrible ruling, whose intent is narrowly tailored but extreme nonetheless. And it's the latest example of how movement conservatism reserves for its followers a loose and ironically liberal interpretation of constitutional rights, even while warning people on the left to watch what they say.
The case was filed after the university, a private institution, and its faculty suspended political science professor John McAdams. The graduate student had told her class that homophobic comments were not welcome, setting McAdams off on his Internet tirade. Blehhhh.
So it's not okay to remind students that hate speech is wrong, but it's right to attack the person that tried to set a tone for discussion in her class until the harassed woman quits her job and leaves the institution. All perfectly professional. Blehhhh.