Dive Brief:
- Lawyers for the University of Iowa are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss a lawsuit by an employee who claims she was discriminated against because of her conservative views.
- Teresa Wagner, a Republican, was associate director of the U. of Iowa law school's writing center when she was reassigned to a library unit that preserves special collections, the Associated Press reported.
- Wagner claims that the university failed to promote her to a law school faculty position because liberal professors objected to her work for anti-abortion groups.
Dive Insight:
The Wagner v. University of Iowa dispute stems from a she-said-she-said incident involving the plaintiff’s backpack. Wagner says she caught the writing center’s director “red-handed,” searching through her backpack as she returned to her office; the director says she had accidently dislodged it and was putting it back. The university’s provost reassigned Wagner, who contended she could no longer work under the writing center director. A Jan. 12 hearing has been scheduled by a U.S. district judge. If the Supreme Court doesn’t intervene, the case is slated to go to trial in March.