Part Six Case Study
Renken v. Gregory
Questions for Analysis
1. The case of Renken v. Gregory clearly supports the core legal principle of stare decisis. The
2. There are actually very few differences. The similarities include that, in both cases, the plaintiff is
a public emplpoyee; in both cases the plaintiff speaks out against the misconduct of the people in power
3. Now this question is very interesting. One might logically (even emotionally) expect the court to
rely on something official like a job description, or a list of contractual duties, a job posting, or a
collective bargaining agreement. Inexplicably, the court refuses to do this and, in fact, expressly rejects
that notion. Instead, the court relies on a vague concept it refers to as the duties “actually performed”
by the professor. So, if the cleaning crew never empties a professor’s waste basket or vacuums the floor
in his or her office, and the professor performs those tasks every morning, then it would seem that the
“actual performance” of such janitorial duties makes the professor at least a part time janitor, right? The
