Conservative Professors Losing Campus Culture War

Teresa Wagner recently notched a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, but she can be forgiven if she doesn’t exactly feel like a winner.

Her lawsuit against the University of Iowa College of Law, in which she accuses the school of denying her a promotion over her conservative beliefs, has dragged on for six years. The case has taken a toll on her family and her finances, and she is running out of money to pay her legal bills.

Ms. Wagner is still working at the university, although no longer as a part-time legal writing instructor. In November, she was reassigned to the library after she told university officials that she found a supervisor rummaging through her backpack.

Even if Ms. Wagner prevails at trial and conservatives win the battle, there is little doubt they are losing the war. Those in the trenches say the assault on conservative ideas in higher education continues despite high-profile legal victories by academics over viewpoint bias.

“These victories are incredibly important to prevent the complete silencing of dissent. But we can’t kid ourselves in thinking that these victories are changing the culture,” said David French, senior legal counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice. “They’re just maintaining the toehold for dissenters.”

Mr. French scored an enormous win a year ago in his defense of Mike Adams, the conservative sociology professor who was awarded a promotion, a raise, $50,000 in back pay and $710,000 in legal fees in his seven-year fight against the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

“In the future, we obviously in the conservative movement have to do much bigger things. We have to start taking over universities,” said Mr. Adams, who also is a columnist at Townhall.com. “When you hear about a liberal cesspool like Sweet Briar College [in Virginia] going broke — conservatives need to buy them. We need our own universities because the fact of the matter is we’re battling against extinction.”

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