Emir James Phillips v. Board of Curators of Lincoln University, fka Lincoln University, et al.

Compelled alteration I nullification of academic-dishonesty grades. Whether compelled alteration or administrative nullification of a professor’s final academic-dishonesty grade is speech “related to scholarship or teaching” that falls outside Garcetti's “official duties” rule and is therefore subject to Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563 (1968), and Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983) balancing—and to this Court’s compelled-speech limits when the professor’s endorsement is required.

State-created entitlements and “follow-your-own-rules.” Whether public-university policies and handbooks that expressly delegate final academic-dishonesty grading to faculty create a state-law entitlement the institution must honor under Roth, Sindermann, and the Accardi “follow-yourown-rules” principle, thereby requiring Ato/?ews-calibrated process before an administrator may nullify a professor’s final dishonesty grade.