Bv RON SOUTHWICK
Macomb Community College has the right to suspend a professor for creating a "hostile learning environment," a consideration even more important than protecting a faculty member's right to free speech a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. The ruling came in a controversial dispute over an English professor who used salty language during classroom discussions of literature.

If it stands, the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit allows the college to issue a semester-long suspension to John C. Bonnell, an English teacher. The college states that Mr. Bonnell breached the confidentiality of a student who filed a sexual- harassment complaint and retaliated against her by distributing a statement of his views on the case.

The college, in Warren, Mich., just outside Detroit, suspended Mr. Bonnell in 1999. That same year, a federal court judge ordered his reinstatement, saying the college had violated his right to free speech. In Thursday's decision, the appeals court stated that freedom of expression is not an institution's first obligation.
"While a protessor's rights to academic freedom and ,freedom of expression are paramount in the academic setting, they are not absolute to the point of compromising a student's right to learn in a hostile-free environment," the court decision stated.

The student, who has not been identified, complained in November 1998 about the professor's foul language. She said she felt degraded and sexually harassed. In February 1999, the college suspended Mr. Bonnell for his language in the classroom, but rejected the sexual-harassment allegations.

College officials said that Mr. Bonnell used words like "damn" and "ass," and more graphic language. The college admonished him for using the term "blow job" when referring to President Bill Clinton's affair 'vith Monica S. Lewinsky. He was also criticized for uttering the phrase "as useless as tits on a nun" while analyzing a story that depicted a nun's conflicted sense of her sexuality.

After Mr. Bonnell issued a satirical apology in 1999, the student who filed the complaint said she could be identified from it. The college indefinitely suspended Mr. Bonnell with pay in February 1999, saying he had violated a confidentiality provision in his contract. A month later, Mr. Bonnell filed a federal lawsuit in an attempt to be reinstated; the college stopped paying him that month.

In August 1999, U.S. District Court Judge Paul D. Borrnan ordered him reinstated. The judge at the time ruled that Mr. Bonnell's speech was protected by the First Amendment. The appeals court ruling issued Thursday reverses that decision, and allows the community college to suspend him.

"This case was very important to the college because the lower-court ruling undermined our ability to provide and protect a nonhostile academic setting in which free expression and the exchange of ideas thrives for both students and faculty," said Rose B. Bellanca, provost of Macomb Community College.

Mr. Bonnell and his lawyer, James C. Howarth, have argued that none of the professor's language in the classroom was ever directed at the student who filed the complaint. Speaking on Sunday from his home, Mr. Bonnell said he would be talking with his lawyers about whether the case should be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He said of the decision, "This is a major infringement upon the civil rights and the free-speech rights of college professors."

Mr. Bonnell said the reaction of his colleagues had been mixed. Some of his fellow professors, he said, don't believe that instructors have the right to free speech, and he said they may well be in the majority at Macomb. Other faculty members have been supportive and are worried about the ramifications of the case, he said.

Mr. Bonnell has said that more than 100 students and former students, in person or In writing, have expressed their support for him.

When asked whether be had changed his teaching style as a result of the litigation against him, Mr. Bonnell replied: "Not yet. I'm still the same teacher I've always been."

Copyright 2001 by The Chromicle of Higher Education