Category Archives: Employment rights

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A jury that awarded $850,000 to an employee of St. Louis Community College over her bosses’ handling of a sexual harassment complaint will end up punishing the public, a lawyer for the school warned Tuesday.

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Inside Higher Ed: Age Bias or Anti-Adjunct Bias?

“You would have been hired, but it was your age. We are not supposed to discriminate because of age, but, let’s face it, we do.”

According to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Friday, a former department chair at Wilbur Wright College used those words to explain to Rosemary Crane why she kept getting passed over for jobs. Crane had years of experience teaching English part time at the college — one of the City Colleges of Chicago — and won awards and rave reviews for her work. But according to the EEOC, the college was happy to have Crane teach class after class — without a full-time job.

Some activists for adjuncts say that the case is important — beyond the questions of age discrimination — because it draws attention to the way part timers so rarely win a shot at full-time positions that open up.

Over the course of 11 years at the college, Crane (who is still teaching part time there) applied for full-time jobs four times and never was offered a job. In 2004, there were two openings and Crane didn’t even get an interview. She was 68 at the time. The two people hired were then 29 and 30. An EEOC spokeswoman said that she could not reveal too many details about the backgrounds of those hired, but she said that Crane was clearly comparable in qualifications and that the positions were for generalists, so there was not some rare specialty that Crane lacked.

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Inside Higher Ed: Are You Now or Have You Ever…

If you want to take a job at some public universities in Ohio, you’ll need to fill out a form declaring that you have no ties (as described in six broad questions) to any terrorist groups as defined by the U.S. State Department.

The form was created this year by Ohio law and applies to all new employees of state agencies. The universities that are starting to have new employees fill out the forms say that they are just following the law. But the American Association of University Professors says that the forms are even broader than McCarthy-era loyalty oaths, are unconstitutional, and “gravely” threaten academic freedom.

In a letter sent to the president of the University of Akron, one of the institutions starting to use the forms, the AAUP said that asking potential faculty members to certify that they have never provided any help to any such group threatens “a broad range of clearly protected free speech and academic freedom.” The letter was sent on the AAUP’s behalf by Robert M. O’Neil, a professor of law at the University of Virginia and director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.

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The Capital Times: UW rules for firing criticized

Proposed rules meant to speed up the firing of University of Wisconsin System professors charged with serious crimes were developed without the mandatory approval of faculty groups, faculty leaders complained Wednesday.

The lack of faculty approval opens the rules to legal challenge from any professor fired under them and sends a message that faculty input is not valued, Madison lawyer Steven Underwood warned the UW System Board of Regents.

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The Chronicle: Federal Agency Files Retaliation Lawsuit on Behalf of Florida Professor

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University who contends that the institution retaliated against him when he complained that he was being demoted because of his age.

The suit, filed on June 30 in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers, Fla., contends that in 2004 the university suggested that the professor, Johnny E. McGaha, be reassigned from his job as dean of the College of Professional Studies to become executive director of the university’s Cape Coral Center, which offers courses off the university’s main campus. Mr. McGaha, who was then 62 years old, said he did not want to make the change — in part because the position paid $11,000 a year less — and he questioned whether the university wanted him to do so because of his age. The university then dropped the idea of making him executive director, the suit says, and demoted him to professor of criminal justice.

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The Register-Guard: Suit claims UO forced teacher out

A University of Oregon professor is suing the school over claims that she was forced out of her job for calling attention to financial irregularities in a graduate program and is seeking more than $1 million in damages.

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Inside Higher Ed:

A federal appeals court announced last week that it is vacating a decision made last month that would have made it easier for clergy and other religious officials to sue religious colleges for employment discrimination. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit did not indicate its rationale in ordering a new hearing in the case, which involves a lawsuit against Gannon University, in Erie, Pa. The ruling against Gannon surprised many legal experts as religious colleges typically have considerable leeway in employment choices involving people performing religious duties.

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Inside Higher Ed: Mentally Untenured

Tenure couldn’t protect one professor coping with a mental illness crisis at Pasadena City College in California.

Yves Magloe, an instructor of English as a second language for six years prior to last fall, says that he tried the best he could to continue teaching classes at the community college after he began experiencing manic delusions as a result of his bipolar disorder, which was first diagnosed in 2000. But, after his medications failed him last October, it became an insurmountable task.

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Inside Higher Ed: AAUP reports on unfair dismissals

When the American Association of University Professors criticizes college administrations for violating the academic freedom of faculty members, administrators sometimes respond that the AAUP is backing politically correct faculty members who don’t care about quality. And when those findings are at religious institutions, a frequent refrain from the colleges involved is that the AAUP isn’t sufficiently sympathetic to the missions of faith-based colleges.

In reports issued this weekend, the AAUP faulted the way professors were treated at Greenville College and New Mexico Highlands University — and the nature of the findings may be surprising. At Greenville, a liberal arts college in Illinois that is affiliated with the Free Methodist Church, the AAUP is backing a professor who was fighting what he saw as a willingness of the college and its faculty to move away from religious orthodoxy. At New Mexico Highlands, the association is backing professors whose tenure cases reinforced the views of some on the campus that Hispanic candidates were being favored and that affirmative action goals were denying promotions to deserving white candidates.

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