Court Reinstates Lawsuit Against Former Dean of Iowa Law School

A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit in which a job candidate accuses a former dean of the University of Iowa College of Law of political bias in refusing to hire her for full- or part-time teaching positions. A trial court had granted qualified immunity to the former dean, Carolyn Jones, in both her official and individual capacities. On appeal, the applicant, Teresa R. Wagner, challenged only the grant of summary judgment to Dean Jones in her individual capacity. In an opinion handed down on Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed that Ms. Wagner had  presented sufficient evidence for a fact finder to infer that the decisions against her hiring were motivated in part by bias against her conservative political belief and association, in violation of her First Amendment rights. It reversed the grant of summary judgment to the dean in her personal capacity and returned the case to the trial court for further proceedings.