COURT OF APPEALS

DECISION

DATED AND FILED

April 13, 2021

Sheila T. Reiff

Clerk of Court of Appeals

NOTICE

This opinion is subject to further editing. If 

published, the official version will appear in 

the bound volume of the Official Reports. 

A party may file with the Supreme Court a 

petition to review an adverse decision by the 

Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10 

and RULE 809.62. 

Appeal No. 2019AP1531 Cir. Ct. No. 2018CV1336

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS

DISTRICT III

ANTHONY GREENE,

 PETITIONER-APPELLANT,

 V.

MARK MONE, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MILWAUKEE, AND 

BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SYSTEM,

 RESPONDENTS-RESPONDENTS.

APPEAL from an order of the circuit court for Brown County: 

WILLIAM M. ATKINSON, Judge. Affirmed. 

Before Stark, P.J., Hruz and Seidl, JJ.

Per curiam opinions may not be cited in any court of this state as precedent 

or authority, except for the limited purposes specified in WIS. STAT. RULE 809.23(3). 
No. 2019AP1531

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¶1 PER CURIAM. Anthony Greene appeals from a circuit court order 

dismissing his petition for judicial review of an administrative decision finding 

just cause to terminate his tenured faculty position at the University of 

Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). We affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶2 A complaint was filed with UWM’s Chancellor against Greene, 

alleging that he: (1) failed to meet UWM’s expectations for effective teaching and 

scholarship; (2) discriminated against students and staff based on disability; and

(3) displayed a lack of professionalism toward students and colleagues. The 

complaint also sought Greene’s suspension from teaching and advising duties 

during the pendency of the complaint proceedings. 

¶3 The Chancellor appointed three UWM professors to investigate the 

complaint. After doing so, their investigation and findings were summarized in a 

detailed report, as was their recommendation that Greene be dismissed from his 

faculty position as an associate professor of psychology. 

¶4 The Chancellor issued a written statement of the specific charges,

and Greene requested a hearing. A hearing was held before UWM’s standing 

Faculty Dismissal Hearing Committee, where the testimony of five witnesses was 

presented and twenty-nine exhibits were submitted. Greene chose not to attend 

the hearing, but he had the opportunity to review the video record of the hearing 

and provide a written response to the evidence presented and the posthearing 

questions. The Dismissal Hearing Committee issued a unanimous decision 

concluding that the three charges had been substantiated. 
No. 2019AP1531

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¶5 The Chancellor reviewed the Committee’s decision and 

recommendations and he agreed there was just cause for Greene’s dismissal. The 

Chancellor then forwarded his recommendation for dismissal to the University of 

Wisconsin President for submission to the Board of Regents for formal action. 

The Board’s Personnel Matters Review Committee heard oral arguments and 

determined that it would recommend that the Chancellor’s dismissal decision be 

upheld. The Board then issued a written decision adopting the recommended 

findings and decision of the Personnel Matters Review Committee to dismiss 

Greene from his position as a tenured associate professor of psychology. 

¶6 Greene sought judicial review. He argued the proceedings were void 

ab initio because a senior colleague, who sat on an earlier faculty committee 

hearing Greene’s complaint that the colleague had engaged in a continuous pattern 

of harassment against him, had a conflict of interest; that his suspension during the 

process was arbitrary and capricious; and that “other laws were deliberately 

broken,” including Wisconsin’s safe place statute. The circuit court dismissed the 

petition, and Greene now appeals.

DISCUSSION

¶7 We review the Board’s decision, not the circuit court’s. Myers v. 

DNR, 2019 WI 5, ¶17, 385 Wis. 2d 176, 922 N.W.2d 47. We apply the 

“substantial evidence” standard, affording significant deference to the Board’s 

findings. See Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra v. DOR, 2010 WI 33, ¶31, 324 

Wis. 2d 68, 781 N.W.2d 674. “Substantial evidence” means that after considering 

all the evidence, reasonable minds could arrive at the conclusion reached by the 

Board. See id. Therefore, we affirm the Board’s decision unless a reasonable 

person could not have reached the decision based upon the evidence and 
No. 2019AP1531

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reasonable inferences that may be drawn from it. See Hamilton v. DILHR, 94 

Wis. 2d 611, 618, 288 N.W.2d 857 (1980). The burden of showing the Board’s 

decision was not supported by credible and substantial evidence is on Greene. See 

Xcel Energy Servs., Inc. v. LIRC, 2013 WI 64, ¶48, 349 Wis. 2d 234, 833 N.W.2d 

665. 

¶8 Here, the evidence supports the Board’s conclusion that there was 

just cause for Greene’s dismissal. To establish “just cause,” UWM had to prove 

that Greene’s conduct could reasonably be said to have a tendency to impair his 

performance of the duties of his position. See Safransky v. State Pers. Bd., 62 

Wis. 2d 464, 474, 215 N.W.2d 379 (1974). 

¶9 The administrative record clearly establishes that Greene failed to 

meet UWM’s expectations for effective teaching and scholarship. First, Greene’s 

undergraduate teaching was shown to be deficient. UWM received a 

disproportionate number of student complaints regarding Greene. At one point,

42% of student complaints in the Psychology Department were about Greene 

despite the fact that he represented only 4% of the full-time faculty and instructors. 

Members of the Department’s Executive Committee counseled Greene but, despite 

the counseling, Greene failed to complete basic tasks such as entering grades by 

required deadlines. One of the courses Greene taught was a prerequisite for an 

advanced course, and the Psychology Department was delayed in verifying that 

Greene’s students had passed the prerequisite class in order for the students to 

progress to advanced coursework. 

¶10 Greene was placed on a formal monitoring plan for three semesters, 

but even then he failed to meet basic teaching obligations, including failing to 

update syllabi and to timely launch an online course. He also failed to cooperate 
No. 2019AP1531

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with the monitoring requirements, such as copying the monitoring team on his 

emails with students. 

¶11 Second, Greene’s graduate-student teaching and mentorship was 

deficient. Greene’s graduate students were not making adequate progress or 

successfully completing the program as compared to graduate students of other 

tenured faculty. Greene had a significantly higher attrition rate of Ph.D. students, 

and he published far fewer papers with his students. In addition, his research was 

unacceptable, and he had not published a paper in well over a decade. 

¶12 Moreover, substantial evidence showed that Greene discriminated 

against students and staff members based on disability. Students with approved 

academic accommodation plans complained that Greene failed to grant 

accommodations in a timely manner or made demeaning comments to them. 

Greene failed to grant extra exam time to a student with a disability, even though 

this student had emailed her accommodation plan to Greene almost two months 

prior to the exam. In response, rather than granting the accommodation, Greene 

accused the student of falsifying her email to him and falsifying her 

accommodation paperwork. He also refused to speak on the telephone via a relay 

service with a hearing impaired staff member who was returning a call to discuss 

this matter. Greene offered no evidence to rebut the evidence of his 

discriminatory treatment of students with disabilities. 

¶13 When the same student missed a subsequent exam for medical 

reasons, Greene told the student via email that her physician could submit a typed 

letter, that it could not be handwritten, and that it needed to be “printed on the kind 

of tamper proof papers physicians use for prescriptions and letters of this sort.” 
No. 2019AP1531

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The hearing impaired staff member stated: “The documentation that is needed is 

listed on our website. Tamper-proof paper is not one of them.” 

¶14 Quite simply, there is significant documentation in the

administrative record supporting the conclusion that Greene’s performance was 

unacceptably poor in many facets of his job, and that his conduct sufficiently 

undermined the efficient performance of his duties of employment. Greene argues 

that “just cause” must mean more than “a professor has changed his syllabus, or 

that his dissertation students left him for a different mentor.”1 But Greene

virtually ignores the robust administrative record showing longstanding problems 

in many facets of his job that worsened over the years. 

¶15 In further support of his argument that the Board erred in dismissing 

him, Greene also cites case law involving tenured college professors who claimed 

constitutional or statutory interests in continued employment. These cases are not 

helpful because they do no more than show that tenured employment is a right that 

can be taken away when due process is provided; Greene received due process in 

this case.

¶16 Greene also argues it was arbitrary and capricious for the Chancellor

to suspend him and immediately exclude him from campus while his dismissal 

was under consideration. He asserts that, even assuming he had done the things he 

 

1

 We note that Greene’s appellate briefs fail to provide citation to the record on appeal, 

in violation of WIS. STAT. RULE 809.19(1)(e) (2019-20), which requires an appellant’s brief “to 

contain the contention of the appellant, the reasons therefor, with citations to the authorities, 

statutes and parts of the record relied on.” We are not required to fish through the record to find 

support for a party’s contentions. We admonish Greene that future violations of the rules of 

appellate procedure may result in sanctions, including refusal to consider such arguments. See 

Alswager v. Roundy’s, Inc., 2005 WI App 3, ¶15, 278 Wis. 2d 598, 692 N.W.2d 333 (2004). 
No. 2019AP1531

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was accused of, “there can be no contention that they represent great and imminent 

harm.” However, a tenured professor can be suspended while a dismissal decision 

is pending. See WIS. ADMIN. CODE § UWS 4.09 (Sept. 2016). In any event, 

whether Greene should have been suspended from his teaching and advising duties 

while his dismissal was being considered by UWM and the Board is a moot point 

given our conclusion that the Board had just cause to terminate his employment.

¶17 Greene also argues the employment termination decision was 

unacceptably compromised because a colleague “who sat for ten months on 

[UWM’s] Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee [FRRC] hearing 

Greene’s complaint against himself had a non-waivable conflict of interest.” 

Greene contends his own performance had deteriorated because he had been 

bullied by this colleague. 

¶18 By way of background, Greene had previously filed a complaint 

with the FRRC alleging a pattern of harassing behavior by the colleague, but after 

an investigation it was determined that there was insufficient evidence to 

substantiate Greene’s allegation. Moreover, Greene does not explain how the 

colleague’s service on the FRRC was related in any way to UWM’s standing 

Faculty Dismissal Hearing Committee that recommended Greene’s dismissal to 

the Chancellor, much less to the Board whose ultimate decision is the subject of 

the present appeal. To that extent, Greene’s argument is undeveloped, and we 

need not further address it. See State v. O’Connell, 179 Wis. 2d 598, 609, 508 

N.W.2d 23 (Ct. App. 1993). Regardless, whatever conflict of interest Greene 

believes his colleague had, it was not relevant to the Board’s decision at issue

here.
No. 2019AP1531

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¶19 Finally, Greene argues that his dismissal violated Wisconsin’s safe 

place statute. See WIS. STAT. § 101.11 (2019-20). The safe place statute is a 

negligence statute that imposes a duty to construct, repair, or maintain a safe place 

of employment or public building. See Mair v. Trollhaugen Ski Resort, 2006 WI 

61, ¶19, 291 Wis. 2d 132, 715 N.W.2d 598. Greene concedes that he “did not 

include reference to the Wisconsin Safe Place Statute in earlier submissions.” He 

also acknowledges that he has “not located any published Wisconsin appellate 

decisions that address whether this law applies to protecting employees from 

mental cruelty.” Nevertheless, Greene asks this court “to consider the issue as part 

of the overall consideration of the University’s indifference to Professor Greene’s 

suffering at the hands of [his colleague], which is itself a form of negligence.” 

Along these lines, Greene contends UWM was “long aware of [his] fragile 

condition and the harm which [his colleague] was inflicting, [but] it took no more 

action than to report that he was ‘improving.’” 

¶20 Even if we overlook Greene’s forfeiture by failing to raise this claim

during Board proceedings, and we could somehow accept Greene’s premise that 

the safe place statute can address mental harm in the workplace, he fails to explain 

how a claim raising that theory would in any way prevent an employer from 

proving just cause for dismissal. Greene’s termination does not implicate the safe 

place statute. There is substantial and credible evidence in the administrative 

record justifying the Board’s decision to terminate Greene’s employment for just 

cause.

By the Court.—Order affirmed.

This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT.

RULE 809.23(1)(b)5. (2019-20).