Ozzie Guillen, Free Speech and the Case of Loretta Capeheart

by Dave Zirin

The Nation Blog
April 12, 2012

http://www.thenation.com/blog/167362/ozzie-guillen-free-speech-and-case-loretta-capeheart

Ozzie Guillen just became the latest person from the world
of sports to find out that free speech isn't necessarily
free. The Miami Marlins manager gave the offhand political
opinion to Time magazine that he "respects" Fidel Castro for
staying alive the last sixty years. He then found himself
swamped in the attendant right-wing hysteria and was
suspended for five games without pay; his job is still
hanging in the balance. I know that people will say the
First Amendment is solely about the government's not
restricting the rights to speech, but the idea that we don't
have the basic freedom to voice ideas that might offend our
employers is both chilling and all too familiar in the world
of sports. Guillen joins athletes like Craig Hodges, Mahmoud
Abdul Rauf, Rashard Mendenhall, Toni Smith and many others
as high-profile cultural object lesson for everyone in the
country: shut your mouth and don't rock the boat.

Both the irony and urgency should be obvious. The space
where we can reasonably be heard is becoming constricted
exactly at the moment when people are beginning to break out
of their shells. We have seen both the Occupy movement and
the national struggle to win justice for Trayvon Martin
present a new willingness to fight. Attacks on speech are
efforts to strangle that impulse in its crib. That's what
makes the legal case of Northeastern Illinois University
Professor Loretta Capeheart so critical for anyone who cares
about freedom of speech and the ability for us to actually
be able to shape our surroundings without fear.

Capeheart is a tenured professor at NEIU, perhaps the state
of Illinois's most affordable and diverse institution of
higher learning. She is also a vocal union and anti-war
activist of many years standing. Understandably, anti-war
students sought her out as a group-adviser during President
Bush's war on Iraq. When two students were arrested for
peacefully protesting a CIA recruitment station, the weight
fell on Capeheart. School President Sharon Hahs denied
Capeheart merit raises and department chair positions and
attacked her in public meetings. Hahs also threatened
students and other faculty, saying that everyone better be
ready to "accept the consequences" for their actions.

Capeheart, despite the absence of any financial banking,
went deeply into debt and took her case to court. After a
four-year legal battle, a federal judge just ruled that he
agreed with NEIU's lawyers. He said professors have no right
to free speech under the Supreme Court's hideous 2006
decision Garcetti v. Ceballos, a case that denied public
employees the right to criticize their superiors. But as
awful as the Garcetti decision was, the High Court made
clear in a footnote that their decision shouldn't apply to
academic settings. The judge in Capeheart's case disagreed
and gave not just Sharon Hahs and NEIU but every school
license to crack down.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
said that the judge's ruling "is chilling and clear:
university administrators need not tolerate outspoken
faculty dissent on matters of broad public concern or on the
university's institutional response to those concerns."

Now Loretta Capeheart, despite being $100,000 in debt, has
made the difficult decision to appeal the ruling and if
necessary take her case to the US Supreme Court. We should
join Center for Constitutional Rights director Michael
Ratner and professor Noam Chomsky and support these efforts.
It's not just the principle of solidarity or the idea that
"an injury to one is an injury to all" that should compel us
to stand alongside her. It's the reality that the defeat of
Professor Capeheart will, as sure as night follows day, be
used to destroy whistleblowers and truth-tellers on campuses
across the country. It will isolate students attempting to
organize for change and create atmospheres of fear and
mistrust, making a mockery of the notion of universities as
citadels of free debate and expression. Given the occupy
movement's challenge to the status quo and the casual tear
gassing of students at UC Davis last fall, the need to feel
fearless has never been more critical. The defeat of Loretta
Capeheart is about the institutionalization of fear.

Professor Capeheart in a recent speech, gave the issue
context. She said,

    A recent news report exposed that two former vice
    presidents at NEIU are "double dipping" by taking six-
    figure retirement incomes at the same time that they
    continue to work at NEIU, earning six figures here as
    well. Will faculty be allowed to speak against this
    perceived abuse of the retirement system, student
    resources and state dollars? Or will the university
    claim that such speech is...punishable? The university
    is spending untold dollars to assure that they can
    impose the latter. don't question, don't engage, just
    agree. We must fight these abuses and take back our
    rights to speak.

Sports, of course, have not been strangers to scandal on
college campuses. Consider the serial cover-ups by officials
at Penn State over accused child predator Jerry Sandusky. Or
think about University of Notre Dame where a recent
investigation revealed that female students who accused
players on the football team of sexual assault received
horrible treatment at the hands of school officials, which
may have been an aggravating factor in a 19-year-old's
suicide.

Now imagine a world where Penn State professors would be
fired for speaking out on the Sandusky case. Or consider an
adjunct denied tenure for raising questions about the way
sexual assault victims are treated at Notre Dame. The stakes
are high. If it's true that change will only come from
below, we should recognize that the powers that be at NEIU
want to take the ground out from under our feet. It's time
to stand with Loretta Capeheart because silence is not
something any of us can afford.

For more information about how you can help, visit
http://justice4loretta.com/

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