Justices Deny Stanford Prof’s Bid to Save Job
The state Supreme Court has denied the appeal of former Stanford University professor H. Bruce Franklin, who was fired for his role in a 1971 anti-war demonstration and takeover of a campus computer center.
In an order made public today, the court unanimously denied a hearing on Franklin’s appeal of a lower-court ruling upholding his firing, and allowed the decision to stand as precedent for other cases in California. Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird took no part in the case.
No decision has been made yet on whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, said Jean Hom, spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawyers represented Franklin.
In seeking Supreme Court review, ACLU lawyers said the effect of an appeals court ruling upholding Franklin’s firing was “to deny California teachers rights of political advocacy and action they would normally enjoy as citizens.”
At a 1971 rally protesting the U.S. invasion of Laos, Franklin urged students to “shut down” the computer center where a plan for an amphibious invasion of Indochina was being tested.
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