A federal jury in Alabama has awarded Auburn University professor Michael Stern $645,837 in damages after finding Stern’s former dean violated his First Amendment rights by punishing him for criticizing the high number of athletes in the school’s public administration program in 2014. Stern was removed as chair of the economics department after raising his concerns about donor meddling in order to protect student-athletes. A 2015 article in The Wall Street Journal found about half of students majoring in public administration at Auburn played sports. The story quoted one school official writing in an email that “If the public administration program is eliminated, the (graduation) numbers for our student-athletes will likely decline.”
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