If you can manage to wade through a snarky, disappointingly illogical post by Marc Bousquet, you'll get to good comments. The best of them explains why Churchill himself rendered it nonviable for the court to order Colorado to reinstate him:

Because equitable remedies may not be claimed in law as of right, the court is also obliged to consider the harmful effect, if any, that may be caused to third parties.

The judge found that Mr Churchill did not, and could not, satisfy the 'clean hands' requirement. Quite apart from the question of whether he should retain his job, a duly-qualified panel of his peers, properly applying the faculty handbook's procedures, found that he had engaged in research misconduct.

The judge was particularly concerned by the plaintiff's expressed intention immediately to file suit against the university 'if they look at him cross-eyed' at any time in the future. This would, the judge observed, make the courts rather than the university's governance structure the venue for deciding whether Mr Churchill's job performance was satisfactory, something they have no business doing.

Reinstatement not being appropriate--not least because of the all-too-predictable harm trying to force Mr Churchill and the University to get along with each other would cause innocent faculty members, staff and students--the only remaining question to be determined is whether the plaintiff should receive 'front pay' in lieu. Here too the judge found that Mr Churchill had not met the minimal burden imposed upon him by the law. This was, essentially, that he should take whatever action was in his power to minimise the financial losses caused him by his dismissal. The judge found that to the contrary Mr Churchill had taken no action whatever in this regard.

Much as I'd like to agree that this decision is alarming (freedom of expression is being seriously challenged even here in the CHE blogs!), I cannot do so. Legally it was sound even if morally, spiritually, and Liberally outrageous to those who want to treat every decision as a threat to the sacred ox: tenure.