Case 4:22-cv-00324-MW-MAF Document 44 Filed 11/17/22 Page 121 of 139
dismissal for failure to maintain “standards of sound scholarship and competent teaching,” and noting “[a] reasonable ordinary person using his common sense and general knowledge of employer-employee relationships would have fair notice that the conduct the University charged [appellant] with put him at risk of dismissal” and that “[i]t is not unfair or unforeseeable for a tenured professor to be expected to behave decently towards students and coworkers, to comply with a superior’s directive, and to be truthful and forthcoming in dealing with payroll, federal research funds or applications for academic positions”).
Defendants’ remaining arguments are unpersuasive. Defendants assert that because the term “objective” is used in a collective bargaining agreement governing a portion of university faculty, Plaintiffs “cannot credibly claim” they are unable to understand the term as it’s used in the challenged provisions. For starters, Professor Novoa is not subject to the cited collective bargaining agreement and cannot be held to understand language which does not bind her. See ECF No. 39 at 27, in Case No.: 4:22cv324-MW/MAF. At most, only one of the cited collective bargaining agreements, ECF Nos. 19-7 and 19-9, in Case No.: 4:22cv324-MW/MAF, appears to bind Plaintiff Almond, as he is the only professor from FSU who is a party to this litigation.
More importantly, the fact that “objective and skillful” instruction is included in a collective bargaining agreement for other university professors does not make
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