Opinion ID: 2982559
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: COP faculty vote

Text: With all of these materials in hand, the COP scheduled a tenure meeting and vote for December 1, 2008. In early November, Buerki, who was to present Plaintiffs application at the meeting, spoke with Plaintiff about his dossier. Buerki shared the letter he had written about Plaintiffs dossier. Plaintiff did not react positively. On November 24, 2008, he filed a motion in the 2007 lawsuit to enjoin the tenure meeting. The district court denied the motion two days later. Plaintiff then wrote a letter to Buerki dated November 29, 2008, detailing several errors and omissions Plaintiff saw in Buerki’s letter. Plaintiff asked Buerki to distribute his letter at the tenure meeting. Buerki agreed to do so. On December 1, 2008, the COP faculty met to consider Plaintiffs application for tenure. But before the faculty addressed the merits of Plaintiffs dossier, there was a lengthy discussion about the propriety of circulating the letter from Plaintiff (we know because the meeting was recorded). Some faculty members were concerned that their vote would be based on less than a full picture of Plaintiffs dossier if the letter were not handed out. Several faculty members opposed having the letter distributed on the ground that the University’s procedures allowed Plaintiff to submit a rebuttal after the COP vote. Once two faculty members threatened to walk out of the meeting, the discussion moved on without Plaintiffs letter being circulated. The substantive portion of the faculty’s discussion focused on Plaintiffs publication history, funding, and the comments from the external reviewers. The opinions were mixed. Some faculty members believed that Plaintiffs funding record and publication were adequate, and that the balance of the external reviews was positive. But several faculty members felt strongly that Plaintiffs record was not up to snuff. One professor, Bob Curley, called the external letters “the least favorable I’ve ever seen for any candidate at any level since” he had -8- No. 13-3029 been at the COP. (R. 76-19, Tenure Comm. Tr., at 10,705.) Dr. Jessie Au commented that the most important metric was peer-reviewed publications, and that Plaintiff had more than enough to warrant tenure. The faculty’s conversation thus mirrored the disparate opinions contained in the letters from external reviewers—ranging from positive to very negative. Balkrishnan and Nahata made their own contributions to the meeting, chastising Plaintiff for his poor relations with them and other faculty in the COP. Balkrishnan started the meeting by asking if the faculty could face legal liability for their comments. Brueggemeier told Balkrishnan that so long as his comments stuck to the facts, the University would offer indemnification. Perhaps buoyed by this assurance, Balkrishnan proceeded to air the allegations that Plaintiff had made against him. Balkrishnan thought his colleagues should consider Plaintiffs internal complaints and EEOC claim when deciding if tenure was warranted. Au objected to Balkrishnan’ s characterization of Plaintiffs complaints as meritless. Later, Nahata vehemently denied Plaintiffs allegation that Nahata had misappropriated a grant. At the end of the meeting, the faculty voted on Plaintiffs tenure application. Seven voted in favor of granting tenure, ten voted against Plaintiff, and four abstained.