Robert O’Neill, a free speech expert and former University of Virginia president and law professor, said in an email that calling a fellow professor a racist was certainly “uncollegial.” But a single offensive epithet would be “insufficient to trigger a major sanction even if targeted to a colleague and not germane to the subject matter.” He continued: “If the concern, by contrast, was inadequate performance amounting (or falling to the level of) ‘demonstrated lack of fitness’ [which could be grounds for termination, according to AAUP] in the cla...