Another look at case against traditional marriage proponent

A conservative analyst says advocates of traditional marriage should be thankful the Supreme Court did not address a case brought by one of their ilk. In October the court denied a writ of certiorari for Dixon v. the University of Toledo, in which a university employee sued after being fired for writing a column critical of homosexuality.

But there was more to the case than met the eye, Heritage Foundation Legal Fellow Andrew Kloster said. He said First Amendment advocates are better off waiting for another free speech case to reach the Supreme Court.

“When a case is denied cert, that doesn’t mean the Supreme Court agrees with everything the winning side said,” Kloster said. Kloster believes the employee, Crystal Dixon, was wrongly fired for political correctness; she argued for her beliefs in such a way that they should not have interfered with her job. But the case was not “clean” enough to go to the Supreme Court. For instance, Dixon mentioned that she was a University of Toledo alumna in her opinion piece, and she addressed the university’s insurance policy. That means the university’s defense—that the articles would affect Dixon’s ability to do her job—was not so far-fetched.

“It’s entirely possible that if this case were granted, it would create bad law,” Kloster said. “The ability of public employees to express themselves politically is one of the biggest issues of our time. There will be other cases that will come up, undoubtedly, and maybe the next one will be better than this one.” Dixon declined to make a statement about the outcome of the case, and her attorney Robert Muise did not immediate return WORLD’s calls.