The State - News from Jan. 7, 1986

Stanford University’s action in firing a professor for a speech he made during an anti-war demonstration was upheld by the California Supreme Court. H. Bruce Franklin, 51, a tenured English professor at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, was a Stanford faculty member when he voiced opposition to the Vietnam War and to the U.S. invasion of Laos during the demonstration Feb. 10, 1971, outside the university computer center. He was fired, and filed suit against the university seeking back pay, damages and reinstatement. The state Court of Appeal upheld the firing, and Franklin appealed. But the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, an action that Margaret Casey, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, said will have a “chilling effect” on the ability of educators to express their views.