BREAKING NEWS:
Appeals Court Rules Again that Service-Related Faculty Speech Is Protected
Dr. David Demers
author / activist / teacher / speaker
Click book image to read drafts of selected chapters. This is a work in progress. Your comments are appreciated. Please contact me at [email protected]
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Journalist-turned-media-sociology-professor David Demers has spent his life promoting free speech, workplace ethics, and civil libertarian causes.
Demers is author or editor of 24 books, including Falling Behind: How Wealth Gaps Prevent You from Getting Ahead (work in progress); Adventures of a Quixotic Professor: How One Man’s Lifelong Passion for Social Justice Bristles Bureaucracies and Sparks a Landmark Free Speech Ruling (2021); and The Ivory Tower of Babel: Why the Social Sciences Are Failing to Live Up to Their Promises (2011). He also has written more than a hundred refereed journal articles, book chapters, and professional publications. Demers ghostwrote the best-selling ABCs of Buying Rental Property (2020) by Ken McElroy (click here to see a YouTube video of an interview with Ken). In 2001, he founded Marquette Books LLC, which has published more than 170 scholarly and trade titles.
Demers earned a bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University and worked for three newspapers in Michigan, earning two statewide first-place awards for investigative reporting. He also earned two master’s degrees from The Ohio State University and worked as a senior marketing research analyst in Phoenix. In 1992, he earned a Ph.D. in mass communication and sociology from the University of Minnesota and taught courses at the University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin–River Falls, Arizona State University, and Washington State University, where he was tenured for 16 years before retiring to spend more time on writing. He currently teaches an introductory sociology course at Glendale Community College in the Phoenix area.
Demers was the plaintiff in Demers v. Austin, a 2014 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals landmark ruling that extended constitutional protection to faculty speech which criticizes administrators' policies and actions on issues of public concern related to teaching and scholarship. In 2010, the Society for Collegiate Journalists honored him with the Louis Ingelhart Freedom of Expression Award, which is given to individuals who contribute to freedom of expression at the risk of personal and/or professional cost.
A theme that runs through many of his writings is that journalists, scholars, professionals, and politicians are not doing enough to promote the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment (decentralization of power, democratic decision-making, civil liberties, empowerment of disenfranchised groups). This is one of the reasons for the rise of extreme right-wing politics in America. He recently completed a dystopian novel that carries the Age of Enlightenment themes to a youthful audience (The Killing of Bere Baudin). He lives in Phoenix.
Demers is author or editor of 24 books, including Falling Behind: How Wealth Gaps Prevent You from Getting Ahead (work in progress); Adventures of a Quixotic Professor: How One Man’s Lifelong Passion for Social Justice Bristles Bureaucracies and Sparks a Landmark Free Speech Ruling (2021); and The Ivory Tower of Babel: Why the Social Sciences Are Failing to Live Up to Their Promises (2011). He also has written more than a hundred refereed journal articles, book chapters, and professional publications. Demers ghostwrote the best-selling ABCs of Buying Rental Property (2020) by Ken McElroy (click here to see a YouTube video of an interview with Ken). In 2001, he founded Marquette Books LLC, which has published more than 170 scholarly and trade titles.
Demers earned a bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University and worked for three newspapers in Michigan, earning two statewide first-place awards for investigative reporting. He also earned two master’s degrees from The Ohio State University and worked as a senior marketing research analyst in Phoenix. In 1992, he earned a Ph.D. in mass communication and sociology from the University of Minnesota and taught courses at the University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin–River Falls, Arizona State University, and Washington State University, where he was tenured for 16 years before retiring to spend more time on writing. He currently teaches an introductory sociology course at Glendale Community College in the Phoenix area.
Demers was the plaintiff in Demers v. Austin, a 2014 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals landmark ruling that extended constitutional protection to faculty speech which criticizes administrators' policies and actions on issues of public concern related to teaching and scholarship. In 2010, the Society for Collegiate Journalists honored him with the Louis Ingelhart Freedom of Expression Award, which is given to individuals who contribute to freedom of expression at the risk of personal and/or professional cost.
A theme that runs through many of his writings is that journalists, scholars, professionals, and politicians are not doing enough to promote the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment (decentralization of power, democratic decision-making, civil liberties, empowerment of disenfranchised groups). This is one of the reasons for the rise of extreme right-wing politics in America. He recently completed a dystopian novel that carries the Age of Enlightenment themes to a youthful audience (The Killing of Bere Baudin). He lives in Phoenix.