The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has reassigned a music professor after a student complained about his use of foul language and adult humor in a music-appreciation course he has taught for a decade, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported today. Kabin Thomas, who lacks tenure and has taught under a series of contracts, told the newspaper that he doesn’t expect his current contract to be renewed.

Some students have started a petition drive to save his job and colleagues have said the incident represents a threat to academic freedom. But the dean who removed him from the classroom, Donald R. Bobbitt, said he had acted in response to a series of complaints about Mr. Thomas’s competence, not just his off-color remarks.

Courts have generally ruled against professors whose vulgar language created a hostile environment for students. The question at Arkansas is whether that can be proved.

Cursing can be an effective teaching tool, on occasion. But that argument may not help Mr. Thomas, who seems as much the victim of changing mores—and changing university responses to student complaints—as anything else.

As Mr. Thomas told the Democrat-Gazette, “I didn’t change a damn thing in 10 years of teaching.”