The University of Minnesota system’s Faculty Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to approve revisions in the system’s academic-freedom policy intended to protect the rights of faculty members to speak out on matters related to their jobs and the governance of their institutions.

The policy revisions are in response to concerns about recent federal-court rulings treating professors at public colleges as regular public employees in terms of their ability to make statements related to their jobs without fear of retaliation by their employers.

This month, for example, a federal appeals court broadly defined job-related speech for which faculty members could be disciplined in a decision involving a professor fired by Delaware State University. Among the statements the court considered job-related, and thus not “citizen speech” protected by the First Amendment, were several involving activities not specifically covered by the professor’s contract, such as comments he made about the university’s presidential search.

Faculty leaders at the University of Minnesota expect the system’s Board of Regents to approve the policy revisions, which are supported by key university administrators, at either its May or June meetings. The American Association of University Professors has cited the proposed policy as a possible model for other colleges seeking to afford their faculty members speech protections that otherwise might not be recognized by the courts.

The new policy defines academic freedom as “the freedom to discuss all relevant matters in the classroom, to explore all avenues of scholarship, research, and creative expression, and to speak or write without institutional discipline or restraint on matters of public concern as well as on matters related to professional duties and the functioning of the university.” —Peter Schmidt