A court decision on Thursday offered a ringing endorsement of the economic basis for tenure and the interconnection among tenure, economic security, and academic freedom. In reaching its decision in Otero-Burgos v. Inter-American University, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit relied heavily upon the AAUP’s "friend of the court” brief (Available Here)as well as on AAUP policies.

Professor Edwin Otero-Burgos had been terminated from his tenured position at Inter-American University in Puerto Rico after appealing an administration decision that he believed violated his academic freedom. One of Otero-Burgos’s students had requested a special opportunity to raise his grade; when Otero-Burgos refused, the administration assigned another faculty member to prepare and administer an additional exam. After Otero-Burgos filed several internal grievances and appeals, the campus’s chancellor overruled multiple committee rulings in his favor and terminated Otero-Burgos’s appointment.