AUSTIN – A finance professor is suing officials at the University of Texas at Austin for allegedly threatening to punish him for his criticism of the university by threatening his job, reducing his pay, and removing his affiliation with UT’s Salem Center, a press release states.
In a complaint filed in federal court, Dr. Richard Lowery, an associate professor of finance at the McCombs School of Business at UT-Austin, said the officials at the state’s flagship university violated his constitutional right to criticize government officials.
The lawsuit also claims the UT administration harmed his right to academic freedom.
Professor Lowery is well known for his vigorous commentary on university affairs, states a Institute for Free Speech press release.
According to the press release, Lowery’s articles have appeared widely, including in The Hill, the Texas Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, and The College Fix. He questioned the UT administration’s approaches to critical-race theory, affirmative action, academic freedom, competence-based performance measures, and the future of capitalism.
One key target of Lowery’s critiques was the UT administration’s use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements to filter out competent academics who dissent from the DEI ideology.
The complaint states that UT’s administration “responded with a campaign to silence Lowery.”
Attorneys at the Institute for Free Speech, a nonpartisan First Amendment advocacy group, are representing Lowery in court. Michael E. Lovins, of the Austin law firm Lovins Trosclair, also represents Lowery in the lawsuit.
“Professors at public universities have the right to criticize administrators and speak to elected officials,” said Del Kolde, senior attorney at the Institute for Free Speech. “The First Amendment protects such speech and, in a free society, DEI programs and UT’s president are not above public criticism.”
The lawsuit says the threats by UT officials “are designed to silence Lowery’s criticisms or … make it less critical….” The threats “also prospectively chill his right to academic freedom.”
His lawyers also allege that the officials “acted to retaliate against Lowery for his protected speech because it was embarrassing to them.”
The lawsuit asks the court to:
- Bar UT officials from threatening or acting on the threats made to Lowery for his protected speech;
- Declare that the “threats against Lowery amounted to unconstitutional state action designed to chill Lowery’s protected speech and retaliate against him;” and
- Award costs and attorney’s fees as provided by federal law.
The defendants in the lawsuit are three officials at UT-Austin, who are all sued in their official capacity: Lillian Mills, Dean of the McCombs School of Business; Ethan Burris, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the McCombs School of Business; and Sheridan Titman, Finance Department Chair for the McCombs School of Business.