Academics
Academic Freedom
The principle that a faculty member's research findings, classroom teaching, and public commentary as a citizen cannot be the basis for discipline, subject to real limits that keep it from becoming a shield for anything at all.
What it protects
A faculty member cannot be disciplined for an unpopular research conclusion reached through sound methodology, for classroom content genuinely relevant to the course even if a student or administrator dislikes it, or for public commentary made as a private citizen (clearly not presented as speaking for the university). This is separate from free speech & expressive-activity areas, which governs where anyone, faculty or not, can hold a demonstration or distribute literature on campus.
Where the limits are
Academic freedom protects the content of scholarship and teaching, not the quality of job performance around it — it is not a defense against being evaluated on whether classes actually meet, whether a syllabus meets department requirements, or whether research meets basic standards of honesty (see academic integrity and research compliance for what those standards are). It also does not extend to speech made explicitly on the university’s behalf in an official capacity, which is subject to ordinary employment expectations.
How a dispute gets resolved
A faculty member who believes a personnel action was really retaliation for protected speech or scholarship can raise it with the Faculty Senate’s academic freedom committee, which reviews the case independent of the administrator who took the action, before it reaches a formal grievance.
Students have it too, differently
Students have a related but distinct protection: the right to take a position in coursework, in a paper or a classroom discussion, without being graded down for the position itself, only for the quality of the argument supporting it — a narrower version of the same underlying principle.