by Warren Moore One of the better known conservative contrarians in higher education is Mike Adams, a criminology prof at the U of North Carolina — Wilmington. After submitting a promotion dossier that included some of his columns, Adams was denied a promotion and sued, alleging viewpoint and religious discrimination. His suit was originally dismissed, but on appeal, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled unanimously that while the religious discrimination charge was rightly dismissed, academic freedom and First Amendment rights must be considered. According to the Chronicle of Higher Ed: If the university does not appeal, the district court will now have the task of determining whether Mr. Adams’s commentaries were a substantial factor in the university’s decision not to promote him and whether his speech should have been protected because his interest in speaking on matters of public concern outweighed the university’s interests in determining for itself how to best serve the public. Now there may be other perfectly good reasons for denying Adams the promotion — I’m not really familiar with his c.v. It’s also not proven that Adams’s viewpoint and columns (which the Chronicle compares to Ann Coulter) were the reason for denial — as

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