What was the conflict?
Don't question the government?
Expert witnesses get called to testify by either party and it’s industry standard they get compensated for their time. That doesn’t create any conflict of interest, and for the University to suggest it does is basically saying they believe their own professors are so unethical they would commit the crime of perjury in exchange for a meager expert witness payment.
Also, the idea they are a expert witness for the plaintiff in a case against the government creates a conflict because they work for a public university is the opposite of a conflict of interest. Whereas there would be more of a conflict if the experts were witnesses for the defendant (ie their employer).
The University is so tone deaf they don’t realize it’s a conflict of interest for the university to prevent professors from acting as experts in cases against parties that fund the university and even worse that they back track in the face of public exposure and pressure by allowing them to testify on the condition they can’t be compensated as expert witnesses…it’s a clear attempt to punish the professors if they do testify, which they probably won’t do now since they aren’t being compensated for their time.
To be fair expert witnesses get a few hundred an hour in compensation for preparing plus actually testifying. That being said in the grand scheme of things it's hardly a fortune, but compared to an average professor salary it's probably a decent bonus.
The physicians being called as expert witnesses had fee schedules that were in the range of $2,000 an hour for testimony, $1,200 an hour for document review.
So let’s say this professor was getting paid even 100% of their salary on this one case, that is pretty meager fee to act inappropriately or commit the crime of perjury…which is the context of the university claiming their is a conflict and they would only permit the professor to act as a witness against the government if they don’t receive compensation. Even a fee matching their annual salary is meager fee in context of an act that would result in sanctions and inability to ever act as a expert witness again and/or termination of their non-tenured professorship as well as the professional humiliation.
That said, it should be up to the lawyers and parties involved in the law suit to evaluate that conflict of interest. There was no reason for the school to interfere there.
Second, your logic is exactly backwards. The reason you might infer a conflict of interest and thus judge someone's testimony because of their employer is that they might be induced (e.g. by being rewarded or punished) to represent their employer's opinions instead of their own. Here, they were called by the plaintiffs and are expected to testify against the interests of the State.
This statement appears to imply that you cannot sue your employer, because of a conflict of interest. I could almost see where you're going with this if the employer is the plaintiff, but when the employer is the defendant, that would be completely absurd.
My intention with this thread wasn't to take a side or defend the university. My intention was to point out how having these specific people as expert witnesses could be seen as a conflict of interest (as compared to, say, expert witnesses that have no relation whatsoever to either party in the suit). This was in response to the people interpreting the situation strictly as "don't oppose the government". The university's actions were abhorrent, but the seed of their concern isn't necessarily invalid.
Many employers regulate the ability to work side jobs. This is known as an employment contract.
This is especially true when it is related to your regular work.
this is directly false in the US system of law
Your parent said nothing about a specific law. They're talking about the practice of law. But let's turn that around. If this is a conflict of interest, can you identify for us where that is codified?
yes, as noted, the legal framework of law in the USA