UCF fired Charles Negy on Friday, and Knight News has learned more about the former psychology professor’s grounds for a lawsuit that he threatened against the university if his termination was successful.
Even though UCF said Negy’s firing had nothing to do with his tweets, Negy could still bring a strong First Amendment lawsuit — and walk away with a “pile of money” — said Adam Goldstein, a Foundation for Individual Rights in Education First Amendment attorney who has criticized UCF’s investigation of Negy.
Goldstein explained during an interview with Knight News on Friday how government officials sometimes take unconstitutional action knowing the courts will strike it down, in order to appease constituents demanding such action be taken.
“On some level, they might actually prefer to lose in court,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein does not represent Negy — the lawyer that does, Samantha Harris, has publicly argued that UCF’s wide-ranging investigation itself violated the First Amendment, as it was only launched because of Negy’s tweets.
Harris told Inside Higher Ed that UCF’s investigation was predetermined from the beginning.
“When Prof. Negy’s views became politically inconvenient to them, they set out to find grounds to fire him,” Harris said. “It was ‘show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime’ … UCF, along with those who solicited and investigated false complaints against him, have violated his rights and defamed him, and will be held accountable in court.”
Negy was first issued a proposed termination notice on Jan. 13, following months of investigation.
UCF spokesman Chad Binette said the investigation began following a series of complaints the university received — primarily from current and former students about Negy’s conduct in the classroom — and the investigation process was comprehensive and unbiased.
Binette said the UCF Office of Institutional Equity spoke with more than 300 people and reviewed hundreds of documents and many hours of audio, and none of the findings were related to Negy’s Twitter postings.
Binette said Negy provided his written response to the university’s termination notice on Jan. 19, but after considering his response and all of the facts in the report, UCF concluded that termination is the appropriate action.
Goldstein said it’s not inconceivable that UCF is simply “willing to burn this pile of money” so it can to go back to these students and say, “we fought so hard, we tried everything we could, but gosh darn it — gosh darn that First Amendment!’”
Goldstein said that this thinking was not baseless if the university’s goal is to ultimately “appease the mob,” and if the university stood on principle and did not fire Negy, then the people who spoke out for Negy to be fired would shift their target to UCF. He said he believes they would want this administration out, and hashtags like #FireCartwright could come about.
Goldstein said that with Negy pursuing legal action, the university could end up paying a significant amount of money just through the legal process alone in court.
“President Cartwright is not in an enviable position,” Goldstein said. “If there’s a ruling and they have to appeal that ruling, just their attorney fees would be upwards of half a million dollars, and that’s not even the cost of the judgment they would have to pay if they lost.”
Goldstein explained the economic harm UCF could face if it loses a potential court case with Negy: paying out a “whole bunch of money” that could have been spent on scholarships, student activities, and repairing student dorms.
This would become a “self-defeating thing to do especially when paying with the state’s money,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein said that he believes going down this path for the university is not a smart one, considering the precedent it might set.
“It would be more effective to not give someone a pile of money if you don’t like them,” Goldstein said. “If this firing goes through and holds up in court, this isn’t the last time UCF is going to fire a professor, and the next time they fire a professor it is going to be the one who is speaking out for something you like, it could be the pro-Black Lives Matter professor. And why? Because someone complained.”
UCF said in an email to Knight News the university supports the First Amendment rights of everyone in the campus community to freely express their opinions, even those that some find objectionable, but Goldstein said he thinks this is potentially undermining free speech.
“Freedom presupposes the right to upset people,” Goldstein said. “Freedom presupposes the right to do things that are offensive and some people find terrible. To say, ‘we believe in free speech but not this free speech,’ kind of undermines the whole concept.”
Click to the next page to see the records obtained by Knight News and previous coverage on the topic.
