The president of the Nebraska Conference of the American Association of University Professors resigned the position on Wednesday over a free-speech clash at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the Omaha World-Herald reports.
Donna Dufner, an associate professor of information systems and quantitative analysis at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, told the newspaper that she had resigned because she could not defend Courtney Lawton, a graduate-student lecturer in the Lincoln campus’s English department.
Dufner also told the newspaper that she had clashed with a former president of the group, Julia Schleck, an associate professor of English at Lincoln.
Lawton caused a stir on the Lincoln campus last August, when she protested a recruiting event for the conservative group Turning Point USA, calling a student recruiter for the group a “neo-fascist.” After the incident Lawton was removed from the classroom. Following pressure from state lawmakers, administrators on the Lincoln campus, and officials of the university system, Lawton was removed from teaching duties permanently.
Professors and free-speech advocacy groups, such as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, have debated whether Lawton’s free-speech rights had been violated, and they questioned if she had received due process.
I cannot faithfully serve as your president and represent your views.
Dufner told the newspaper that she ultimately thought campus administrators had handled Lawton’s case well. In an email to AAUP officers in Nebraska and other colleagues in the organization, Dufner wrote, “I cannot faithfully serve as your president and represent your views.”
The World-Herald reported that Schleck, the former president, had written an email response saying that professors’ personal views on Lawton’s protests were extraneous. “In conducting an investigation as to whether the rules were followed in the administration’s response,” she wrote, “we are supporting the principle of rule by bylaw, not Lawton per se.”
Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz is a breaking-news reporter. Follow her on Twitter @FernandaZamudio, or email her at fzamudiosuarez@chronicle.com.
