HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Another Hopeful Sign: Hiers v. Board of Regents.

In my last piece, I covered the recent decision in Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School District, where the court declared that a new admissions process for a highly-regarded STEM-focused high school was unconstitutional, finding that scrapping the old merit-based process in favor of “racial balancing” (based on Kendian “equity” principles) was clearly illegal under decades of Supreme Court authority. I also noted that individual public administrators could face personal liability for their involvement in adopting such “woke” programs, as the clear nature of the law puts their usual qualified immunity in serious jeopardy.

Another recent decision (Hiers v. Board of Regents of the University of North Texas) amplifies this latter point. The Hiers case should serve notice to public university administrators that while wokeism may be the accepted narrative of the faculty lounge, the law is not so easily ignored—and that continued violations may well result in their being held personally liable.

As they should be. It’s been my observation that faculty and administrators are petrified of being sued, but that it doesn’t usually occur to them that they might be sued by someone on the right.