Trump critic cannot sue Yale over free speech violation

A psychiatrist brings this lawsuit claiming that Yale University declined to renew her contract because she said that a prominent supporter of former President Trump had a "shared psychosis by contagion." Connecticut has a statute that says you can't be fired in retaliation for engaging in free speech, even if you worked for a private entity, which normally is not governed by First Amendment standards. Plaintiff loses the case.

The case is Lee v. Yale University, a summary order issued on June 20. Plaintiff is a prominent Trump critic who has publicly said Trump is mentally ill. Her termination from Yale was controversial and made the news. The target of her criticism was one of the most prominent lawyers and public intellectuals in the country.

The statute in question says “[a]n employer . . . who subjects any employee to discipline or discharge on account of the exercise by such employee of rights guaranteed by the first amendment to the United States Constitution or section 3, 4[,] or 14 of article first of the Constitution of [Connecticut] . . . shall be liable to such employee for damages caused by such discipline or discharge." 

I would guess Connecticut is one of the few states with a statute like this. But it does not help plaintiff. Why? Because plaintiff is not an "employee" under the statute. She was a volunteer. Under the traditional test in determining if someone is an employee, we ask if the employer has control over you. Since plaintiff was an unpaid voluntary Assistant Clinical Professor at Yale, she is not covered under the statute even though Yale provided her with office space, facilities, libraries, laboratories, statistical programs and software, etc. This is all indirect renumeration, the Court of Appeals says, or benefits that are merely incidental to her volunteer work. Benefits that might have helped her cause would have been health insurance, life insurance, or a retirement pension. She did not receive these benefits and thus cannot invoke Connecticut's unique statute.