Tag Archives: Legal issues

Utah: U. humanities dean accused of defaming prof

Salt Lake Tribune: U. humanities dean accused of defaming prof

A defamation lawsuit filed Monday alleges the University of Utah’s Middle East Center is hemorrhaging faculty, putting at risk the federal grant that has sustained the center for nearly 50 years.

U. administrators say they are committed to the center’s survival and growth, even in the face of evaporating budgets and competing needs.

U. humanities dean Robert Newman was sued by Hebrew professor Harris Lenowitz, after alleging last year that he and another veteran scholar from the center were contributing to a hostile environment for female faculty.

CU to ‘vigorously challenge’ Churchill’s reinstatement

Daily Camera: CU to ‘vigorously challenge’ Churchill’s reinstatement

BOULDER, Colo. — The University of Colorado will “vigorously challenge” Ward Churchill’s effort to get his job back in the school’s ethnic studies department, a CU spokesman said Thursday.

Ken McConnellogue, spokesman for the CU system, said the university is relying on its findings that Churchill engaged in repeated and flagrant academic misconduct to support its stance that having the controversial former professor back on the Boulder campus is a “bad idea.”

Kentucky: Felner said he used grants to build up company

Courier-Journal: Felner said he used grants to build up company
Ex-dean spoke to investigators

Former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner told federal investigators last summer that he and an Illinois colleague used federal grant money to invest in properties around the country because they were trying to build up a nonprofit company that they had created for educational research, according to a 320-page transcript of the interview.

Felner and his colleague, Thomas Schroeder of Port Byron, Ill., both have pleaded not guilty to federal charges of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and defrauding the Internal Revenue Service.

AAUP Council Backs Churchill’s Reinstatement

Inside Higher Ed: AAUP Council Backs Churchill’s Reinstatement

The National Council of the American Association of University Professors has issued a statement calling for the reinstatement of Ward Churchill by the University of Colorado. The statement, in its entirety, is this: “We believe the disputes over Ward Churchill’s publications should have been allowed to work themselves out in traditional scholarly venues, not referred to disciplinary hearings. We believe Churchill should be reinstated to his faculty position at the University of Colorado.” A Colorado jury last week found that the University of Colorado did not fire Churchill as an ethnic studies professor on the Boulder campus for legitimate reasons, but for his political views. A judge will later determine whether Churchill can return to his tenured job. Typically, AAUP’s academic freedom committee issues findings about cases involving claims of wrongful termination, but Nelson noted that the National Council from time to time speaks out on its own, as it did in this case. Churchill was fired after the university found that he had engaged in numerous instances of scholarly misconduct.

Professor Loses Discrimination Case Against Montana State U.

Bozeman Daily Chronicle: MSU prevails in gender discrimination lawsuit

A jury of eight women and four men ruled against a female Montana State University professor in Gallatin County District Court Friday after a ten-day trial in which the university’s promotion and pay policies were challenged based on allegations that the engineering professor was paid less than her male counterparts.

The jury was asked to determine whether tenured engineering professor Aleksandra Vinogradov was discriminated against because she is a woman and the discrimination was retaliation for complaining about her pay. Vinogradov was the first woman to be granted a tenured professorship in the university’s engineering department and was the only female professor there for several years.

Widow loses lawsuit over UC Irvine’s willed body program

Los Angeles Times: Widow loses lawsuit over UC Irvine’s willed body program

Evelyn Conroy sued after the university lost track of James Conroy’s body. The California Supreme Court says she failed to prove that the university violated its donation agreement with her husband.

Florida: Faculty complaint exposes unrest at Chipola College

Tallahassee Democrat: Faculty complaint exposes unrest at Chipola College

MARIANNA — An obscure labor-law complaint filed by nursing professors at Chipola College has exposed simmering unrest among faculty members at the little campus in the tall-pine country of Florida’s Panhandle.

“They used to get paid the same for doing the same work,” said Tom Brooks, a Tallahassee attorney for the United Faculty of Florida. “Now they have to work a lot more to earn the same.”

Chipola faculty representatives say there’s “an ol’ boy network” that pays handsome salaries to an influential current state legislator and another former lawmaker who serve as roving ambassadors for the college president.

Churchill $1 award result of one juror

Denver Post: Churchill $1 award result of one juror
Five on the six-person jury wanted to give the fired professor more.

Five of six jurors favored awarding fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill as much as $110,000 or more — while a single juror insisted he get nothing, a juror and Churchill’s attorney said Friday.

Ward Churchill’s $1 Damage Award Said to Have Been Product of Jury Compromise

The Chronicle News Blog: Ward Churchill’s $1 Damage Award Said to Have Been Product of Jury Compromise

Thursday’s jury verdict in Ward Churchill’s lawsuit against the University of Colorado has given rise to a mystery: How is it that a jury could rule that the university had acted illegally in firing Mr. Churchill, and yet still award him only $1 in damages?

Jury Says Ward Churchill Was Wrongly Fired

The New York Times: Jury Says Professor Was Wrongly Fired

DENVER — A jury found on Thursday that the University of Colorado had wrongfully dismissed a professor who drew national attention for an essay in which he called some victims of the Sept. 11 attacks “little Eichmanns.”

Ward Churchill, who was a tenured professor at the University of Colorado, left, walked with his lead attorney David Lane out of the courtroom after a jury ruled that he was wrongly fired by school administrators, on Thursday.

But the jury, which deliberated for a day and a half, awarded only $1 in damages to the former professor, Ward L. Churchill, a tenured faculty member at the university’s campus in Boulder since 1991 who was chairman of the ethnic studies department.

Amid Talk of High Ideals, Arguments Close in Ward Churchill’s Lawsuit

The Chronicle: Amid Talk of High Ideals, Arguments Close in Ward Churchill’s Lawsuit

The trial in Ward Churchill’s wrongful-dismissal lawsuit against the University of Colorado drew to a close on Wednesday with the embattled professor’s lawyer telling jurors that nothing less than the fate of the Constitution rested in their hands.

Churchill jury returns today

The Denver Post: Churchill jury returns today

A Denver jury will continue deliberating the fate of Ward Churchill’s civil case against the University of Colorado today after meeting for a half-day Wednesday without reaching a verdict.

The four women and two men listened to the case for four weeks and heard 45 witnesses testify in the courtroom of Denver Chief District Judge Larry J. Naves. Two male alternates were sent home after closing arguments Tuesday.

Court Upholds Dismissal of Delaware State Professor

Inside Higher Ed: Court Upholds Dismissal of Delaware State Professor

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld Delaware State University’s firing of a professor, Wendell Gorum, after he was found to have changed grades and enrollment status in official university records for 48 students. Gorum claimed that he was fired in retaliation for certain statements he made in the context of his job duties — statements that disagreed with administration positions. The court rejected Gorum’s free speech claims, citing a Supreme Court ruling in 2006 that limited the free speech rights of public employees when they are speaking on job-related matters, not simply speaking as public citizens. That decision has concerned advocates for public college faculty members, fearing that they could be punished for criticizing administrators. In the Delaware State case, however, the appeals court found that Gorum’s conduct changing grades would have led to his firing, for legitimate reasons, even if he had never spoken out in ways that may have offended the administration. Gorum’s actions changing grades, the court found, showed “disregard for the academic integrity of DSU.”

California: Charges dropped on poison accusation at UCSF

San Francisco Chronicle: Charges dropped on poison accusation

San Francisco prosecutors dropped all charges Monday against a former UCSF lab researcher who had been accused of trying to poison a co-worker.

Ben Chun Liu, 38, who worked in the urology department, had been charged with attempted murder and putting poison in a drink belonging to co-worker Mei Cao, 44.

Cops dump MIT student paper

Boston Globe: MIT suspends 2 police officers
Newspaper copies with arrest story were dumped

Two MIT police officers, apparently unhappy with the student newspaper’s coverage of a fellow officer’s recent arrest for drug trafficking, did the only thing they could think of to block the bad news: They trashed it.

Kentucky: Court hears Felner’s interview

Courier-Journal: Court hears Felner’s interview
Defense seeks to block its use

During a six-hour-plus interview with federal investigators last summer, former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner went from being described as confident by investigators and a colleague to saying he was “freaked” and asking if he could go to jail.

“I’m starting to feel like I’m getting thrown under the bus,” Felner said in a tape-recorded conversation with investigators that was played in court today during a hearing to decide if comments he made during the interview can be used against him in a criminal trial.

Felner, 58, faces 10 counts of mail fraud, money-laundering conspiracy and income-tax evasion after a federal grand jury indicted him in October.

A colleague, Thomas Schroeder, 51, of Port Byron, Ill., also is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service.

The indictment accuses the two of fraudulently obtaining nearly $2.3million in grant and contract money from UofL and the University of Rhode Island. Both pleaded not guilty in October and were released on unsecured bonds.

Protection for For-Profit Colleges

Inside Higher Ed: Protection for For-Profit Colleges

Arbitration clauses in contracts are designed to give parties a clear-cut and less expensive route to resolving potential disputes. But provisions that require parties to go through arbitration and relinquish their right to pursue other legal avenues have been controversial, particularly when one of the parties is viewed as being at a disadvantage to the other, as in the case of nursing homes and their clients.

Those issues took center stage in a decision issued Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which reversed a lower court’s ruling last year forcing a for-profit college to defend itself in court against 38 students’ charges of fraudulent misrepresentation and negligence. In its ruling, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit said that the arbitration clause contained in the enrollment agreement that students signed before entering High-Tech Institute, a vocational institution in Missouri, compels the student plaintiffs to enter arbitration before they can rightfully pursue their claims in state or federal court.

Churchill takes the stand

Denver Post: Fired prof takes the stand; Fights to regain his post

Ward Churchill took his fight to regain his professorship to the witness stand Monday afternoon, defending his views on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and asserting that his academic practices were entirely routine.

Nursing Student Sues After U. of Louisville Expels Her for Online Posts About Patients

The Chronicle News Blog: Nursing Student Sues After U. of Louisville Expels Her for Online Posts About Patients

A former nursing student at the University of Louisville sued the institution in federal court yesterday, alleging that it had violated her free-speech and due-process rights by expelling her for her posts on MySpace, where she wrote about her patients, gun rights, and abortion, among other issues.

Explosive Problem for the University of Louisville – Nursing Student Expelled for MySpace Blog

PageOneKentucky.com: Explosive Problem for the University of Louisville – Nursing Student Expelled for MySpace Blog

On Thursday, March 5th we learned that a nursing student at the University of Louisville was expelled because of a post on her MySpace account.

And it’s official. A law suit was filed today alleging the University has violated rights to free speech.