United States Ninth Circuit

In a Title VII action claiming that defendant public university administrators failed to take immediate or appropriate steps to prevent a professor from sending allegedly racially harassing emails, the denial of qualified immunity to defendant is reversed where plaintiffs' objection to the professor's speech was based entirely on his point of view, and it was axiomatic that the government could not silence speech because the ideas it promoted were thought to be offensive.

Appellate Information

• Argued 10/19/2009
• Decided 05/20/2010
• Published 05/20/2010

Judges

• Before SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR, Associate Justice,ALEX KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, and SANDRA S. IKUTA, Circuit Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Richard S. Cohen, Troy P. Foster and Justin S. Pierce, Ford & Harrison LLP, Phoenix, AZ, for the defendants-appellants., David G. Hinojosa, Nina Perales and Diego Bernal, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), San Antonio, TX; and David G. Gomez and Michael J. Petitti, Gomez & Petitti, Phoenix, AZ, for the plaintiffs-appellees.