An internal panel voted against firing – but the president overrode them
A Tennessee appeals court just ruled a university had every right to fire a tenured professor – even after an internal panel said otherwise.
On March 20, 2026, the Court of Appeals of Tennessee at Jackson handed down its decision in a case, reversing a lower court order that had reinstated the professor with backpay. The ruling sends a clear signal to HR professionals: when building a termination case, the cumulative weight of documented misconduct matters far more than any single incident.
Cedar Nordbye joined the University of Memphis in 2003 as an assistant professor of art and earned tenure in 2009. By 2015, his supervisor was fielding a steady stream of complaints about Nordbye's conduct toward students, colleagues, and staff. What followed was a sprawling catalog of workplace incidents spanning roughly two and a half years.
Nordbye used a racial slur in class without providing educational context. He sent a student an email that his supervisor described as a veiled threat about the student's future career prospects. A second student reported feeling humiliated by Nordbye's treatment – prompting other faculty to take the unusual step of advising the student to file a formal grievance. He silk-screened messages onto campus walls, damaging state property. He taped images of firearms to campus buildings overnight, alarming custodial staff who discovered them the next morning. He was involved in two...
A bitter legal battle at JPMorgan Chase has taken another dramatic turn after executive Lorna Hajdini filed a defamation lawsuit against former banker Chirayu Rana, accusing him of making up false...