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Thirteen months after initiating what appeared to be a termination process, Marquette University on Thursday announced a final decision on the fate of John McAdams, the associate professor whose public criticism of a teaching assistant ignited a firestorm in 2014.

The verdict: McAdams has not been fired, according to his attorney. Instead, he has been suspended — with benefits but no salary — through the fall 2016 semester. In addition, McAdams will be required to admit he was wrong within two weeks or he will not be reinstated.

"I don't know what John's going to do," said Rick Esenberg of the conservative public interest law firm Wisconsin Law & Liberty. "Obviously, it's not my call."

McAdams, who has been suspended with pay since the incident, declined to comment Thursday.

Marquette University President Michael Lovell announced Thursday in an email to the university community that he would implement the unanimous recommendation of a faculty committee that reviewed McAdams' case. But he declined to offer details of the sanctions, calling it a personnel matter.

Lovell said his decision "has been guided by Marquette University's values and is solely based on Professor McAdams' actions, and not political or ideological views expressed in his blog."

Wisconsin Law & Liberty issued a statement late Thursday calling that almost 16-month suspension improper. It said the faculty committee found that Marquette had suspended McAdams in violation of his due process rights and that it disagreed with the university's desire to fire him. It said the requirement that he admit wrongdoing goes beyond the recommendations of the committee.

McAdams, a political conservative who writes the Marquette Warrior blog, was suspended and banned from campus in 2014 after publicly rebuking graduate student Cheryl Abbate for refusing to let a student raise the issue of gay marriage as part of a broader philosophical discussion in class.

When the student pressed it further after class, Abbate told him he did not have a right to make "homophobic" comments in her class, according to a recording the student made of the conversation.

McAdams accused Abbate of "using a tactic typical among liberals."

"Opinions with which they disagree are not merely wrong, and are not to be argued against on their merits, but are deemed 'offensive' and need to be shut up," he wrote.

Abbate transferred to the University of Colorado at Boulder shortly after. She declined to comment on Thursday.

The incident drew national attention, sparking debates over protected speech at the private university; who should be able to express or suppress certain views; and whether a professor publicly criticizing a student is inappropriate in a learning environment.

In February 2015, McAdams blogged that he was being fired, quoting a letter from Arts & Sciences Dean Richard Holz stating: "We are commencing as of this date the procedures for revoking your tenure and dismissing you from the faculty."

The faculty hearing committee, composed of seven of McAdams' peers conducted a four-day hearing in September, according to Lovell. Its unanimous recommendation — to suspend but not fire McAdams — was contained in a 123-page report delivered to Lovell in January.

Esenberg said the committee acknowledged McAdams' right to academic freedom and his constitutional right to free speech, but that it punished him for the reactions he provoked in others.

"He's being punished because, in response to this blog post, there were people who sent this instructor some very nasty and odious emails," said Esenberg.

"Whatever you think about her treatment of the student, she certainly didn't deserve that," he said. "But it is frightening to think that the concepts of academic freedom and freedom of expression would be contingent on the actions of third parties."

Marquette Provost Daniel Myers said Thursday that the case was about upholding Marquette's mission and values.

"We're here to nurture and grow students in a way that hews to our Jesuit values," he said. "In the end, these kinds of cases, for us, are really about making sure we live up to those values."