Opinion ID: 557202
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Events According to the Pro Se Complaint

Text: 4 From the complaint, which annexed as exhibits copies of, inter alia, memoranda to or from various of the defendants, the following picture can be gleaned. After receiving his M.A. degree in 1978, Branum was encouraged to pursue his doctorate. For the next five years, he experienced difficulty in finding a dissertation advisor (an essential step, according to department officials), in getting lecturing assignments, and in gaining access to university facilities. In 1983, he was assigned an acting advisor, Professor Peter Hilton; according to Hilton, the unduly prolonged process of admitting Branum formally to candidacy for the Ph.D. was not the fault of Branum but was attributable to the fact that there was no one on the SUNY-Binghamton faculty with sufficient expertise on Branum's topic. Nonetheless, by 1985 Branum had made sufficient progress that Hilton recommended his admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. 5 After receiving this recommendation, the graduate committee of the mathematics department decided to require Branum to take preliminary closed-book examinations, a practice it had abandoned in 1977 as unsound. Though no other student after 1977 had been required to take such examinations, Branum was to be required to take them in order to be admitted to candidacy. Branum protested the requirement, especially in light of certain practical difficulties, and sought to institute a student grievance proceeding. He had inquired as to the availability and effect of such a proceeding, and the university's provost for graduate studies had replied (a) that Branum would be accorded the same due process given to all students at SUNY-Binghamton, if [he] were to be involved in a grievance situation, and (b) that students involved in a grievance would not be dismissed from their program by the Graduate School until the on-campus conclusion of due process with respect to their case. 6 Branum's pleas for a prompt grievance proceeding with respect to the examination requirement apparently fell on deaf ears, and an examination committee was appointed. Nonetheless, no examination was conducted during the 1985-1986 school year; nor was there any grievance hearing during that period. On October 1, 1986, Branum received a notice from the university's vice provost for graduate studies that he was being dismissed from the doctoral program, effective at the end of the spring 1986 semester. Branum had received no prior notice or opportunity to be heard with respect to his dematriculation. 7 Seeking to reverse this decision, Branum filed a grievance against several faculty members, including the chairman of the mathematics department, defendant David Hanson. In January 1987, a six-person grievance committee was appointed. All of the members of the committee were appointed by Hanson. Further, one of the members was a faculty member then under consideration for tenure, and the key recommendation with respect to his tenure was to be made by Hanson. Two other members of the committee were doctoral candidates whose thesis advisors were two faculty members against whom Branum's grievance was filed. Branum protested the conflicts of interest on the part of these grievance committee members. The complaint attached as exhibits 8 and 9 memoranda from two mathematics department professors also protesting this lack of fairness in the committee membership. 8 The complaint also annexed a protest from the Graduate Student Organization (GSO), both questioning the fairness of the grievance committee and stating that GSO had received reports that the treatment of Branum was the product of racial discrimination. The complaint itself alleged that [r]acism, both institutional and personal, was marshalled around the admission to candidacy status as an excuse to keep [Branum] from being employed as a lecturer in either the Fall 1986 or Spring 1987 semester. The complaint also alleged that, in contrast to the treatment of Branum, a grievance filed by one of the department's Caucasian graduate students, together with that student's protests of conflict of interest, had been handled promptly. 9 Apparently all of the protests on Branum's behalf were unsuccessful. The complaint sought a judgment vacating Branum's dematriculation, ordering that he be given a hearing and be reinstated in the doctoral program, and awarding him money damages. 10