The University also responded to my motion for an injunction pending appeal. Here is my reply.

As part of my lawsuit, I asked the Kentucky Attorney General to stop enforcing a Kentucky law that requires Kentucky’s public universities to tar principled opposition to the colonization, apartheid, and genocide of Palestine as “antisemitism”. All Kentuckians have a First Amendment right to oppose Israel. The Attorney General filed a brief in the U.S.…

The District Court having refused to reinstate me pending my appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, I now ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to reinstate me pending my appeal.

The District Court said it would abstain from considering whether it had made a mistake in abstaining.

I’m appealing. I motioned to be reinstated while the appeal is pending.

Instead of deciding to put me back in the classroom based on the likelihood of success of my First Amendment and Due Process claims, the District Court chose to abstain from hearing the case for the time being on the ground that a federal court should respect state proceedings when they are akin to judicial…

In which I point out that in a recent book the university’s general counsel and defendant in this case acknowledged that academic speech is protected by the First Amendment—a position he is now rejecting in this case.

The university responds to the motion for a preliminary injunction by ignoring precedent that makes clear that academic speech is protected.

The University has motioned to dismiss the case. The University’s position is in effect that there is no constitutional protection for academic freedom, contradicting Supreme Court precedent stretching back to the Red Scare.

I’m asking for the investigation to be dropped and to be reinstated to teaching during the pendency of the litigation