That was the claim of those bringing the suit. Here, I think, is the article the OP was excerpted from:
The judges, amazingly, think that emails sent to all district employees count as "academic debate". Now, if there was a seminar on race, and he'd said these things, I could see that you could call that "academic debate" - it would be in a teaching/discussion environment, and those present would be expecting to hear claims abour race. But this was junk mail sent to your inbox, even if you're a clerk.
A law blog on this:
In Rodriguez v. Maricopa County Community College District, the Ninth Circuit considered several “racially-charged” e-mails which Professor Walter Kehowski sent out to all employees on a Maricopa Community College District distribution list. Kehowski’s e-mails included such statements as: “It’s time to acknowledge and celebrate the superiority of Western Civilization,” “Our survival depends upon discrimination,” and “The only immigration reform imperative is preservation of White majority.” Kehowski also sent an e-mail espousing the belief that Native Americans actually committed genocide against the “original white-skinned inhabitants of North America.”
...
The Ninth Circuit issued a remarkable, strongly-worded
opinion, which reads largely as a discourse on the value of the First Amendment. While recognizing that an employer made aware of unlawful harassment must take appropriate steps to investigate and curtail the harassment, the Ninth Circuit viewed Kehowski’s statements as pure academic speech, and the college’s decision as to how to handle the professor’s speech “demands substantial deference” from the court.
The Ninth Circuit emphasized that the government “may not silence speech because the ideas it promotes are thought to be offensive.” According to the Ninth Circuit, that is particularly true in the context of educational institutions: “Without the right to stand against society’s most strongly-held convictions, the marketplace of ideas would decline into a boutique of the banal, as the urge to censor is greatest where debate is most disquieting and orthodoxy most entrenched.” In fact, the Ninth Circuit declared, it is precisely that freedom of speech in an academic environment which proved pivotal to the success of abolitionist ideas during the Civil War. “Free speech has been a powerful force for the spread of equality under the law; we must not squelch that freedom because it may also be harnessed by those who promote retrograde or unattractive ways of thought.”
http://www.northwesteducationlaw.com/articles/walter-kehowski/Oh, and the bigot called Bill Clinton 'treasonous scum'.
The judgement seems to say, to me, that since the racist emails and postings weren't directed at any one person in particular, they don't count as harrassment. So the ruling seems to say employeers don't have a responsiblity to prevent general expressions of racism, vocally expressed among their employees.
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