reputation.
Plaintiffs rely on Smock v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Mich., 353 F. Supp.3d 651, 657 (E.D. Mich. 2018) for the proposition that “professors may have a protected property interest in their jobs duties if those responsibilities are essential to the employee’s scholarship and academic standing.” (Doc. No. 81 at 10). Reliance on Smock is misplaced. Not only was Smock decided in the context of a motion to dismiss, underpinning its property interests discussion was the Supreme Court’s observation that “[t]o have a property interest in a benefit a person must clearly have more than an abstract need or desire and more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.” Colorado v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 756, 125 S.Ct. 2796, 162 L.Ed.2d 658 (2005). The plaintiff in Smock arguably had a property interest in sabbatical leave because there apparently was no discretion for the school to deny it, and arguably a property interest in his role as a graduate student advisor under his contract with the school, although that was less clear. 353 F. Supp. 3d at 656. The same cannot be said here.
Undoubtedly, “government employees have a cognizable property interest in their job if they have tenure.” Hasanaj v. Detroit Pub. Sch. Cmty. Dist., 35 F.4th 437, 448 (6th Cir. 2022). Beyond that, and “[a]s a general rule, Sixth Circuit caselaw establishes that ‘tenured university professors do not have a constitutionally protected property interest in administrative posts.’” Kaplan v. Univ. of Louisville, 10 F.4th 569, 579 (6th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted). The Sixth Circuit recognizes “two potential exceptions to [its] general rule[:] [f]irst, a professor may have a property interest in an administrative position that is itself a tenure-track appointment; [or second], an express guarantee that the employee holds the administrative post subject to removal for cause might create a property interest.” Id. Both exceptions are in keeping with the Supreme Court’s teaching that there must be
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Case 2:21-cv-00039 Document 90 Filed 12/01/22 Page 23 of 27 PageID #: 8935
