142988P.pdf   10/26/2016  Craig Keefe  v.  Beth Adams
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  14-2988
   U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota - Minneapolis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Loken, Author, with Shepherd and Kelly, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Civil rights. Given the strong state interest in regulating 
   health professions, teaching and enforcing viewpoint-neutral professional 
   codes of ethics are a legitimate part of a professional school's 
   curriculum that do not, at least on their face, run afoul of the First 
   Amendment; college administrators and educators in a professional school 
   have discretion to require compliance with recognized standards of the 
   profession, both on and off campus, so long as their actions are 
   reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns; plaintiff's 
   offensive posts on his Facebook page were directed at fellow Nursing 
   Program students, involved their conduct in the program and included a 
   physical threat against a fellow student; as a a result, the defendants 
   could terminate him from the program as his comments had the potential to 
   impact the educational experience and patient care; the First Amendment 
   did not bar defendants from making the determination that plaintiff was 
   unable to meet the professional demands of being a nurse, and the 
   standards applied were generally recognized and sufficiently specific to 
   support the action; plaintiff's substantive due process claim rejected; 
   with respect to his procedural due process claim, defendants afforded 
   plaintiff a pre-removal, informal face-to-face hearing that included an 
   opportunity to respond, and the procedures used were sufficient to comport 
   with due process; further, plaintiff was given sufficient notice of the 
   faculty's dissatisfaction, an explanation of why his conduct fell short of 
   the professionalism requirements of the program, an opportunity to respond 
   to the initial decision and an opportunity to appeal; school's policies 
   did not create an expectation of a formal hearing process. Judge Kelly, 
   concurring in part and dissenting in part.