By Professor
Doom
Perhaps the most abusive employment
situation in higher education is in Colorado, where the food banks specialize in helping the
severely underpaid faculty. Yes, things are tough all over, but the starving faculty there know the
system is exploitative, because, well, let me recycle a quote:
The culture of fear in higher education did not arise
spontaneously. Quirks in our legal system give administration on campus
considerable leeway when it comes to crimes, allowing them to “criminalize”
perfectly legal behavior and mete out extreme punishments, via the campus kangaroo court system.
Thus, faculty are terrified on campus. A
single word out of line can easily result in termination and even other
punishments far beyond what a “normal” employer could inflict on an employee.
Due process, even if written into campus policy, is typically ignored by a royal administrative caste that
has long since figured out that they really can do whatever they want without
repercussions.
Only faculty with financial resources (not a
given when you’re paid below minimum wage, not the only common illegal activity
on campus), can take
wrongs to our admittedly broken legal system.
The ACLU will sometimes take up the more
abusive cases. Even when this happens, many institutions have deep pockets and
are willing to fight, even when blatantly wrong.
The American Civil Liberties Union on
Wednesday filed a complaint against Adams State
University administrators on behalf of Danny Ledonne, a former adjunct
professor of mass communications and video production employee who was banned
from campus after he repeatedly criticized the university on a personal website
called WatchingAdams.org.
Banned from campus for criticizing
the university. What horrible things did he say?
Ledonne wrote about pay differences
between faculty members and administrators and questioned the university's
hiring practices…Adams State issued Ledonne a no-trespass order this fall.
The complaint, filed in a federal court in Colorado, alleges violations of
Ledonne’s free speech and due process rights, as well as false and defamatory
claims by the university that his behavior was threatening.
Ah, the ol’ “we can do what we want
because we felt threatened” ploy. Hey, it’s worked well for the police, and I
can even see it when dealing with an obvious criminal in the street…but how can
anyone accept this in response to words on a web page?
Naturally, Adams State is quite
confident that they’ll beat this case, hinting that there’s far more here than
just a website:
Adams State said in a statement that
the complaint is “based on a wholly false premise that we have been eager to
completely refute, but have lacked the legal ability to do, until now.”
Officials said that they look forward to “making the case that the university’s
actions were based solely on evidence and the belief that Mr. Ledonne’s
longstanding pattern of inappropriate actions and threatening statements
required us to act in an abundance of caution to protect our students, faculty
and staff. We will aggressively contest any accusation that our safety-based
decisions were in any way related to constitutionally protected freedom of
expression.”
Thing is, admin is used to having
complete control of the system. I know the kangaroo system well; I’ve seen
admin destroy evidence…and then dismiss the case of abuse against faculty for
lack of evidence. I’ve seen admin construct secret evidence…and then convict
faculty based on evidence which the faculty can’t possibly defend against
because he doesn’t even know it exists. I’ve seen “faculty committees” formed
in response to due process concerns…and then seen administration threaten these
faculty to rule in administration’s favor.
I’ve seen plenty of faculty lose their
jobs in this system…and I’ve never seen an administrator lose. Their control is
so complete. So, naturally, administration is confident that they can get away
with anything.
So, the adjunct takes admin to court.
How’d it work out?
Adams State University in Colorado
has agreed to rescind a no-trespass order against a former adjunct professor of
communications and pay him a $100,000 settlement based on claims that it
violated his free speech and due process rights.
But…admin was so confident they were in
the right. The students were in danger, admin said. Their decision against the
adjunct was strictly in the cause of safety, and admin was determined to fight
this case, or so they said.
Alas, nigh every word falling from
administrative mouth is false.
Instead, they’ll just cough up $100,000.
Granted, this is peanuts, a month’s salary/benefits for the Poo Bah, but the
fact remains: actual lawyers explained slowly (more accurately, “very, very,
slowly”—I spent years trying and failing to convince admin about some pretty
basic concepts to no avail) that admin was wayyyyyy out of line in what they
did to the adjunct, and that there was absolutely no way administration was
going to win this case in court.
I know, our court system has many
critical flaws, and is hardly the best, or even a decent, place to go to get
justice. Compared to the utterly rigged system on our campuses, however, it’s
practically Nirvana in terms of fairness.
Admin just can’t let it be, can’t just
cough up the check and admit they lost:
A university spokesperson said in a
separate statement Monday that the judge “ruled there was no wrongdoing on the
part of Adams State University or our administration. The insurance company
settled this as a nuisance case.”
Wait, what? If the judge ruled “there was no wrongdoing,” why was
there a $100,000 payout? If the judge made this ruling, the case is over. Any
lawyers reading this? Please use the contact form to let me know if I’m wrong
on how this works.
Nuisance cases are generally settled
before you get to court (making the quick payout prevents the expensive court
costs). If the judge is hearing the case, there’s less reason to make a
nuisance settlement…and you’re sure not going to pay it after the judge has ruled in your favor.
If you’ve won, you don’t pay. And that’s
taking the above lies seriously. If admin was really honest about “protecting
students” on campus by suspending the adjunct, then they’d fight this, and
fight this hard…because administrators with integrity would do so, should do so. Again, this assumes admin
was telling the truth. Were they lying then, or are they lying now?
Trick question: they’re always lying.
Across the country, this sort of stuff
goes on regularly, and the ACLU can’t protect every adjunct that’s getting
screwed. Even though admin lost this one (but won’t admit it), they win every
time in the kangaroo campus system.
The gentle reader need not hold hope that
this one case will change anything, however, as administration didn’t really
lose. When an adjunct loses, he loses his job, but when administrators lose,
it’s just taxpayer money anyway.
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