Third Circuit Hears Pitt Professor’s Appeal Over Alleged Retaliation for Scholarship Criticizing Race Preferences

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit today heard oral argument in Norman Wang v. University of Pittsburgh, an appeal raising core questions about academic freedom, viewpoint retaliation, and whether a public university may punish a faculty member for publishing controversial, peer-reviewed scholarship on a matter of public concern. 

Dr. Norman Wang, a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, alleges that after he published a peer-reviewed article criticizing the use of race preferences in medical education, University leaders and affiliated actors denounced his work and then took adverse actions against him. Those actions included removing Dr. Wang from a leadership role and imposing restrictions tied to his expressed views. 

The appeal asks the Third Circuit to reverse rulings that rejected key claims and to send the case back for further proceedings. Among other issues, Dr. Wang challenges decisions that dismissed his defamation claims at the pleadings stage and granted summary judgment against him on First Amendment and civil rights retaliation claims. 

“Universities can disagree with scholarship. They can debate it. What they cannot do is use their institutional power to punish a faculty member for expressing a disfavored viewpoint, especially on a matter of public controversy,” said J. Robert Renner, counsel for Dr. Wang and a Deputy General Counsel at the Center for Individual Rights. “Dr. Wang published peer-reviewed research raising serious questions about race-conscious policies in medical education. The Constitution does not permit a public university to respond to that speech with retaliation.” 

“Caring for patients with good science requires critical examination of evidence and freedom to ask hard questions,” said Dr. Norman Wang. “I brought this case because academic medicine needs to encourage rigorous debate, not enforce orthodoxy through threats to reputation and career.” 

A decision is expected in the coming months. 

Read the case page here.