At Missouri public universities, retaliation is not reform | Opinion

The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear two petitions arising from my disputes with Lincoln University. Some readers may hear that and think: case closed.

Not quite.

A denial of certiorari means the court declined review. It does not mean every public question has been answered. In my current federal case, the court narrowed the litigation, but two claims remain: First Amendment retaliation and defamation.

Those claims are not technicalities. The First Amendment issue is whether protected criticism was punished. The defamation issue is whether official words unfairly damaged professional reputation. Together, they go to something every Missouri family should care about: whether public institutions can use their power to punish people for raising uncomfortable questions.

I am a party to litigation involving Lincoln University in Jefferson City, and Lincoln disputes or may dispute many of my allegations. Readers do not need to decide the lawsuit to understand the civic issue. Public universities should answer criticism with records, reasons and process — not retaliation. My speech concerned academic integrity, grades, faculty search committees, hiring authority, official records and public accountability.

These are not ivory tower abstractions. Grades affect scholarships, transcripts, graduate school and jobs. Faculty hiring affects whether students are taught by qualified people in their fields. Taxpayers fund public universities and deserve to know that rules are followed.

In March 2025, I wrote to Lincoln faculty about pending lawsuits concerning what I alleged were administrative overrides of faculty grading decisions and administrative interference in faculty hiring. I argued that these were questions of academic integrity, shared governance, accreditation and the institutional role of professors.

On April 16, 2025, while those lawsuits were pending, Lincoln President John Moseley sent a faculty-wide email. He wrote that faculty had been receiving emails from a “fellow faculty member” that he viewed as “wholly misleading.” He then addressed the same subjects: administrators “assigning grades,” grade-change procedures, hiring committees, hiring recommendations and presidential hiring authority. He said the grading position was “simply not true,” that hiring committees make recommendations, and that the president remains the final hiring and firing authority. He closed by saying he would not allow the actions of a “single faculty member,” seemingly pursuing his “own agenda,” to derail Lincoln’s progress.

The email did not name me. The court also noted that nonfaculty readers would not identify me from the email alone. But the court recognized that, construing the facts in my favor, faculty could understand the email referred to me because it concerned emails I was known to have sent and lawsuits I had filed.

That matters.

In a workplace, reputation is practical. It affects whether people trust you, recommend you, hire you or listen to you. Describing an identifiable professor’s governance speech as “wholly misleading,” agenda-driven and aimed at derailing progress can be more than disagreement. It can mark the speaker as dishonest, disruptive and disloyal.

Public employers may defend themselves. A university president may disagree with a professor. No employee has a right to be free from criticism. But public officials should not use institutional authority to turn protected criticism into supposed betrayal.

That principle does not belong only to professors. It protects the nurse who reports unsafe conditions, the road worker who flags waste, the clerk who questions records, and the teacher who objects when rules are ignored. A public paycheck should not require public silence.

Reputation is not vanity. For working people and professionals alike, reputation is how you feed your family. It is references, interviews, customers, promotions and trust.

The better answer is simple: Correct the record with facts. If a critic is wrong, show why. If a rule was followed, identify the rule. If a grade was changed, say who changed it and under what authority. If a hiring committee was bypassed, explain and document the reason. Do not convert dissent into disloyalty.

The Supreme Court may be finished with my earlier petitions. Missouri should not be finished with the question they leave behind.

Retaliation is not reform. Reputational attack is not transparency. And public institutions should not confuse loyalty with silence.

Emir J. Phillips is a former associate professor of finance and business law at Lincoln University. He writes on finance, law, public institutions and higher education governance. His First Amendment retaliation claim against certain Lincoln University officials remains pending in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Central Division, Case No. 2:25-cv-04289-BP.