מ The Cumberland College and Penn State- Altoona Cases. Erin O'Connor reports on two apparent scandals of academic freedom violations at Cumberland College and Penn State-- Altoona. At Cumberland College, an instructor was tricked into resigning after he set up a website critical of the administration's financial procedures. Penn State-Altoona is trying to fire a tenured art history professor who is critical of administrative reorganization.
A few thoughts to tie together my recent postings on the cases of Robert Day at Cumberland College
and Nona Gerard at Penn
State Altoona. Day lost his job as an assistant professor of social work after posting a
website that called for administrative, spiritual, and fiscal reform at his school.
Gerard is suing to keep her job as a tenured associate professor of theater after being
charged with grave misconduct and failure to perform.
...
I'll try to explain my thinking on this, as cases like Day's and Gerard's hit close
to home for me. First, consider Day's case. Yes, he erred in thinking he could level
reasonable criticism at Cumberland's administration without losing his job. But that
does not mean that on a moral or ethical level he is the one in the wrong. He didn't
libel anyone, or make any false accusations, or behave in a criminal or indecent manner.
He spoke his mind, and he said things that clearly needed to be said. He spoke because
no one else was willing to--not even his colleagues with tenure. Critics of academe
comment endlessly on the institutionalized spinelessness of the tenure system. They
point out that what the tenure system does is select out anyone who can think for
himself and has the courage of his convictions, and that it selects for those without
convictions, those who conform for a living, who readily bend, in unctuous, Uriah Heep-
like manner, in whatever direction the fashionable wind is blowing.
The Robert Day case seems straightforward. An instructor with a year-to-year contract
put a website saying that in light of big cutbacks, his college ought to have more open
financial accounts. The president called him into his office and induced him to resign.
Within a few hours the instructor realized he couldn't have been fired without getting
legal damages, and there now is a legal question as to whether his resignation is valid
and whether he can get unemployment insurance.
The Altoona case is more complicated. Without going deeply into the evidence, it seems
that a tenured professor is being fired for a mixture of reasons, one of which is
invalid and others of which might be valid. A Pittsburgh newspaper says,
Penn State Altoona CEO and Dean William G. Cale Jr. did not return a phone message
seeking comment by press time. However, in an Aug. 11, 2003, letter supporting Gerard�s
termination, addressed to the university�s standing joint committee on tenure, Cale
wrote that Gerard had refused to get with that program: "Gerard has consistently
maintained a belligerent and hostile position with respect to the IA faculty,
disparaging many of these individuals personally and professionally, both privately and
publicly." Cale�s letter cites several caustically critical e-mails Gerard sent to
other faculty.
I doubt a professor can legally be fired for being critical of colleagues and programs,
and in this case she certainly should not be fired for that reason, or even penalized in
salary or duties. So far, it's simple. But it seems also that she has refused to be
involved with some new program that she opposed. That might be legitimate grounds for
being fired. Mixing together the reasons, however, leaves the Dean looking morally in
the wrong and not very bright. If he was going to fire a professor for her educational
views or personal obnoxiousness (wrong) and for refusing to do her job (okay), then a
more prudent dean would have left the illegitimate reason unmentioned.
[
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