(JEWISH GROUP) Appeals court revives retaliation claim by ex-professor who praised Hitler

A federal appeals panel has determined that a New Jersey university was wrong to deny a philosophy professor continued employment after learning he praised Adolf Hitler and made other controversial comments outside the classroom.

Judge Paul Matey of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Jason Reza Jorjani’s off-campus comments were protected by the First Amendment and did not disrupt the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s educational mission, as it claimed.

Matey, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, cited a 2021 federal ruling that sided with an Ohio professor disciplined for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns.

“In essence, NJIT posits that because Jorjani offered views it disliked, the First Amendment should not apply,” Matey wrote. “We cannot agree, lest we permit ‘universities to discipline professors, students, and staff any time their speech might cause offense.’”

The 13,000-student university in Newark hired Jorjani in 2015 and renewed his contract in 2016 and 2017. But administrators placed him on paid leave after a New York Times column and video revealed he had made controversial comments about Hitler, race, and immigration, and that he had founded an alt-right corporation and website with white nationalist Richard Spencer.

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