Trio of professors sue Texas community college over alleged First Amendment violations

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Three professors filed federal lawsuits against Collin College, a public community college, alleging they were let go over their public remarks on a variety of subjects, including the school’s COVID-19 response and former Vice President Mike Pence. 

Key Players 

Michael Phillips, an award-winning professor, formerly taught at Collin, a community college in McKinney, Texas. He specializes in the history of race relations. His lawsuit accused the school of not renewing his contract because of his public criticism of its COVID-19 response and his advocacy for removing Confederate statues in Dallas.

Suzanne Jones, a former education professor, and Lora Burnett, a former history professor, filed similar lawsuits alleging their Free Speech rights were violated by the college when their contracts weren’t renewed. 

H. Neil Matkin, the president of Collin College, was accused of retaliating against Phillips.  

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan nonprofit organization monitors and defends students’ and faculty members’ rights on college campuses, particularly those related to Free Speech and expression. The organization provided legal representation for Phillips, Jones, and Burnett.

Further Details 

On Aug. 4, 2017, Phillips signed an open letter in The Dallas Morning News on behalf of a group of East Texas-based historians, calling for the removal of Confederate monuments in Dallas.

Matkin and other administrators at Collin College told Phillips his participation in the letter violated school policy, as it mentioned Phillips’ affiliation with Collin and thus “made the college look bad.”

Two years later, The Washington Post interviewed Phillips about a former Collin College student who fatally shot 22 people in a racially motivated attack on Aug. 3, 2019, in El Paso. Phillips, who spoke “in his capacity as an expert on the topic of race relations,” nevertheless noted that he was a Collin College professor.  

Administrators issued Phillips an “employee coaching form” for defying Matkin’s policy, which forbade faculty members from speaking with the media about the shooting. 

In 2020, after the onset of the Covid pandemic, Phillips and college officials continued to clash. That year, Collin College decided to open in-person learning for the fall, a decision Phillips criticized on Facebook. 

“That feeling when your employer doesn’t value your health and safety,” Phillips wrote in a post.

On Aug. 11, 2021, Phillips posted a photo of a slide from a faculty meeting on his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts. The slide said faculty were forbidden from requesting, requiring, or recommending mask usage on classroom signs or in their syllabi at the beginning of the fall 2021 term.

The slide, which had the caption “Note what we were told about discussing masks and Covid with students at my college today,” resulted in Phillips receiving a “Level 1 warning” from the administration, which referenced the two social media posts, the 2019 interview and the 2020 Facebook post.

On Aug. 31, 2021, Kristen Streater, dean of Collin College, and Chaelle O’Quin, the associate dean of academic affairs, told Phillips they would not recommend him for a contract extension. On Sept. 14, Phillips filed a formal grievance, asserting his contract was not renewed because he spoke out against racism and the school’s COVID-19 response.

Community college professors are usually hired on multiyear contracts, as they often do not have tenure protection, as is the case at Collin College. 

During his appeal, Phillips tasked his students with writing a paper on the history of epidemics, from Christopher Columbus’ expedition to North America to COVID-19. In class, he reviewed the activities of anti-mask advocacy groups during the 1919 influenza pandemic and “explained that historians found such resistance seriously damaged efforts to bring the flu under control.”

According to his lawsuit, on Jan. 28, 2022, Phillips was told his contract would not be renewed. 

“I never dreamed I would teach at a college where I would be ordered to not share facts, particularly life-saving ones, with my students,” Phillips said. “We should model for our students how to hear speech and ideas we don’t like, skills necessary for participating in a democracy. Collin College is denying students that lesson.”

Phillips sues college over violation of First Amendment rights

On March 8, 2022, Phillips — represented by FIRE — filed a federal lawsuit against Matkin and other Collin College officials, alleging the school and its officials violated his constitutional rights by firing him for talking about history and criticizing the college’s COVID-19 policies. 

Phillips said he hoped to set a “pro-free speech precedent for colleges and universities” and disrupt what he described as a “trend toward censorship on a number of topics: public health, but also racial justice, gender studies.”

Marisela Cadena-Smith, a Collin College spokesperson, asserted that “the college vehemently disagrees with Dr. Phillips’ mischaracterization of this personnel matter as part of the lawsuit he has filed.” 

“As an employer, the college has every right to determine who it employs, especially when no immediate supervisors recommend an employee for continued employment,” Cadena-Smith added. “While it is regrettable that Dr. Phillips has chosen to mischaracterize facts and file a lawsuit, the college looks forward to defending its actions in court.”

Phillips’ lawsuit followed two others in the same federal court — all alleging First Amendment violations. In September 2021, Suzanne Jones, a former education professor, filed a federal lawsuit against Collin College, claiming her contract wasn’t renewed due to her public criticism of the school’s reopening plan for COVID-19, as well as her union advocacy. 

The next month, Lora Burnett, a former history professor, also filed a federal lawsuit, alleging Collin College fired her because of her negative tweets about former Vice President Mike Pence and for criticizing the school’s COVID-19 response

Outcome 

On Jan. 25, 2022, Burnett accepted the college’s offer to pay $70,000 plus attorneys’ fees after a court judgment in Burnett’s favor.

In Jones’s case, in August 2022, the court ruled that Collin College administrators could be held personally and financially responsible for their actions. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, called the defendants’ argument “dead on arrival” and said their actions were “clearly unconstitutional.”

On Nov. 3, 2022, Jones and the school entered into a settlement. She got her job back, at a higher salary, and received $230,000 from the school. Her lawyers received $145,000.

Phillips’ case is ongoing. On April 11, 2023, Phillips filed a motion for summary judgment on five of his seven claims against Collin College. The motion challenges the school’s policies as overly broad and vague, and as prior restraints on employee speech.

Meanwhile, FIRE named Collin College as one of its 2022 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech and featured former Collin College professors in a Free Speech ad campaign.