Opinion ID: 396536
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Impact of the Need to Reduce Staff

Text: 34 It is our conclusion that, resolving all doubts in plaintiff's favor, and fully accepting that his remarks were entitled to First Amendment protection, 20 nevertheless he did not present a sufficient case to justify his going to a jury. First and foremost, long before Mayberry uttered any of the criticisms on which he has based his case, the department head, Fernandez, had already concluded that he would not recommend tenure if the department had to undergo any staff reduction. Fernandez, in reviewing the five candidates eligible for tenure consideration in 1971-72, knew that one had to be denied tenure, i. e., that staff reduction was required. 21 35 B. Weakness of proof of awareness by Fernandez that Mayberry was the source of the criticism 36 Second, the evidence was very weak that Fernandez, before April 13, 1972, knew Mayberry was the source of the criticisms. At most it comes down to the fact that Fernandez testified that he possibly knew. Mayberry, however, as the plaintiff, had the burden of persuasion. A statement that one possibly knew implies that he possibly did not know, leaving things very close to an even balance. Chief Judge Sobeloff put it well when he observed that an issue can only be submitted to the jury when it is supported by (e)vidence which shows a 'probability' and not a mere 'possibility.'  Ralston Purina Co. v. Edmunds, 241 F.2d 164, 168 (4th Cir. 1957), cert. denied, 353 U.S. 974, 77 S.Ct. 1059, 1 L.Ed.2d 1136 (1957); accord Ford Motor Co. v. McDavid, 259 F.2d 261, 266 (4th Cir. 1958), cert. denied, 358 U.S. 908, 79 S.Ct. 234, 3 L.Ed.2d 229 (1958); Bryan v. Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith, Inc., 565 F.2d 276, 281-82 (4th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 943, 98 S.Ct. 1524, 55 L.Ed.2d 540 (1978). 37 C. Insufficiency of June, 1972 events to prove causality with respect to April, 1972 recommendation that tenure not be granted. 38 Plaintiff seeks to make much of the fact that, in early June, 1972, Dr. Mayberry and Mrs. Mayberry met separately with Fernandez. Each quoted him as accusing Mayberry of being a troublemaker in his critical observations about Fernandez to the Self Study Steering Committee, thereby stirring up trouble. He was quoted as adding that further adverse conduct by Mayberry would result in his immediate termination. Dr. Williams, the French Professor, quoted remarks to like effect made by Fernandez at the time in June, 1972 when Williams suggested reconsideration of the decision not to offer tenure to Mayberry. Fernandez stated to Williams that he would not have someone like that tenured in the department. Fernandez' demeanor at the June meetings was described as angry. 39 Mayberry would relate those occurrences back two months or more to the period prior to April 13, 1972 on a theory that Fernandez had been harboring hard feelings all that time. It is, however, simply too thin, considering the evidence as a whole. The June anger, in the circumstances, is much more probative of contemporary identification of the critic at a time well after the tenure decision had been reached. 40 D. Legal irrelevance of fact that two granted tenure did not have Ph.D. degrees. 41 There is another fact which should be mentioned in this connection. At the time Fernandez declined to recommend tenure for Mayberry, he gave favorable consideration to 4 other candidates, among them Mrs. Mayberry. 22 Of the 4 granted tenure, 2 (Mrs. Mayberry included) had earned the Ph.D.; 2 had not. Mayberry had since 1968 been a Ph.D., and the University normally required a Ph.D. for a grant of tenure, although waivers of that requirement had, with some frequency, previously occurred. 42 No great weight can, with respect to a First Amendment violation claim, be assigned to the fact that several candidates to whom tenure was granted in 1971-72 lacked the Ph.D. degree, while Mayberry had been a doctor of philosophy since 1968. The doctorate or lack thereof theoretically could make a difference all other things being equal. But things, when teaching qualifications are being examined at the university level, are practically never equal. Human personalities come in myriad forms, capabilities and sizes, and, in determining whether or not to grant tenure, it is appropriate not to accord controlling weight to any single indicator. The doctoral degree is but one of a number of factors to be considered when the question of whether to grant tenure is addressed. Its presence by no means guarantees a grant of tenure. Its absence by no means prevents a grant. 43 There consequently must be something more than proof of Mayberry's Ph.D., and the lack of that academic merit badge on the part of another, successful candidate. 44 E. Non-recusal of Fernandez with regard to the tenure recommendation respecting Mayberry. 45 No more does it advance Mayberry's case to point to the fact that Fernandez, who became his adversary, by virtue of his recommendation to deny tenure, did not recuse himself. It will not suit to fashion a rule, or reach a result which, in its consequences, will expose universities to great turmoil and expense, unless they automatically rearrange the departmental structure to remove the department chairman or other evaluating faculty members from further participation as to a particular candidate for tenure everytime sparks fly. See Megill v. Board of Regents of the State of Florida, 541 F.2d 1073, 1079 (5th Cir. 1976). The inordinate increase in cost and the elimination of effectiveness which manifestly would attend any such rule are all too evident. Such a rule would be an open invitation to manipulative activities by a candidate to neutralize consideration by a department chairman who the candidate had cause to believe did not, for adequate reason, favor a grant of tenure. 46 The evidence must, therefore, be substantial that the senior faculty member participating in the evaluation process of a candidate for tenure has so lost his objectivity that he no longer is able to look on the task from the university's perspective, but instead has personalized it and converted it into something approaching a personal vendetta. Duke v. North Texas State University, 469 F.2d 829, 834 (5th Cir. 1972). 47 F. Absence of sufficient causal connection between Mayberry's criticisms and Fernandez' recommendation not to grant tenure. 48 The law is a study and function of human life, not an exercise of automatons. It is, consequently, an aggregate of approximations, not an exact science. So a resort to percentages to demonstrate a point is only to provide an illustration, not to suggest that sufficiency of the evidence can be reduced to such mathematical precision. 49 With that caveat in mind, let us suppose that for either of the two factors in the equation, standing alone, there was sufficient evidence to have supported a jury verdict in Mayberry's favor. The two factors are, of course, (a) a favorable prospect, before his protected criticism was uttered, of Mayberry's receiving tenure, and (b) some degree of assurance with which it could be said that Fernandez knew of the criticisms as originating with Mayberry before he, on April 13, 1972, submitted his recommendation that Mayberry not be granted tenure. The evidence favoring Mayberry on either factor, standing alone, while weak, still, we may assume, would have sufficed for a jury verdict in Mayberry's favor. Let us, as best we may, recognizing that we thereby substitute an apparent simplicity for an actual complexity, assign values of 5% and 8% likelihood respectively. If one of them had been at the virtual certainty level, 23 the case would hold at the 5% to 8% range of probability. But both were far from the virtual certainty level, and multiplication of the two, one against the other, yields a figure of less than .005. That is, the causality percentage of the case, for which Mayberry, as plaintiff, had the burden of proof was but 4/10ths of 1%. Put another way, it is 99.6% certain that denial of tenure was not associated with the protected criticism. In the real, everyday world, the residual 4/10s of 1% is less than a scintilla, and the case falls for failure of proof. 50 Against the strong probability that tenure would not be forthcoming for Mayberry, the evidence that Fernandez retaliated for reasons of free speech exercise is just too attenuated, especially evidence of the essential causal link, namely, knowledge by Fernandez by April 13, 1972 that Mayberry was the source of remarks critical of him. See Chambliss v. Foote, 421 F.Supp. 12, 15 (E.D.La.1976) (The evidence does not support a finding of any causal connection between the statements made or demonstrative activities engaged in by the plaintiff or her husband and the non-renewal of her contract.), aff'd on basis of the district court's opinion, 562 F.2d 1015 (5th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 839, 99 S.Ct. 127, 58 L.Ed.2d 137 (1978); Markwell v. Culwell, 515 F.2d 1258 (5th Cir. 1975). 51 All in all, therefore, both obstacles in Mayberry's path, combined, have proven too much for him to overcome, even assuming that, had but one of them existed, his evidence would have been sufficient to surmount it. 52 G. The nature of a tenure grant at the university level, and the absence of stigma in a failure to receive tenure. 53 To counter that reduction of the plaintiff's case to or below the de minimis level, Mayberry can point to something which he may argue augments the figures to his favor, enhancing the likelihood that he would have been granted tenure, were it not for the criticism. In his fifth continuous year at the University, he could call attention to four occasions (indeed to five, counting the final year allowed in order to comply with the rule requiring 12 months' advance notice of non-reappointment) when his work was deemed so satisfactory that the University renewed his teaching contract. That, Mayberry can contend, raised his probability of receiving tenure to a virtual certainty, there having been no evidence of any prior effort to terminate him, but, on the contrary, a reiterated expression of satisfaction with his work. 54 There is some immediate surface plausibility to the argument, but it dissipates entirely following a review of just what appointment, at a university level, to tenured status signifies-and, even more to the point, what non-appointment does not signify. 55 There appears to lurk in some quarters a belief that the jury would have been within its rights to infer from five years of continuous service by Mayberry, satisfactory enough to merit repeated yearly reappointment for yet another year, that some unworthy reason must have underlain his failure to win tenure, and that negative reaction to his unfavorable criticism was, indeed, the occasion of unmerited mistreatment. Such a suspicion is no more than that, unsupported by evidence, and at complete odds with the concept of tenure as it exists in American institutions of higher learning. 56 To address that point will necessitate a rather detailed description of the tenure concept. The rules governing teacher employment status at institutions of higher learning such as the University, as is customarily the case throughout the United States, derive primarily from generally applicable, nationwide principles. While professors and instructors, on the one hand, and individual institutions, on the other, may make overriding agreements which will, naturally, take precedence, they are not usual. In the case of the University and Mayberry, rather than any inconsistent, specialized terms controlling, the University Faculty Manual, to the extent here relevant, coincides with or supplements the generality. 57 As an authoritative source for the applicable rules we turn to Faculty Tenure, A Report and Recommendations by the Commission on Academic Tenure in Higher Education, 1973 (hereafter Faculty Tenure). As stated in the Preface to that book: 58 The Commission on Academic Tenure in Higher Education was established during 1971 and worked under a grant from the Ford Foundation. The commission was jointly sponsored by the Association of American Colleges (AAC) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), two organizations with a long history of joint activity in the development of policies relating to higher education. In particular, the AAC and the AAUP were the framers of the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the fundamental document on the subject. The 1940 statement was a restatement and expansion of the 1925 Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure, prepared by a conference of educational organizations, including the AAC and the AAUP, convened by the American Council on Education. The 1925 statement, in turn, had replaced the original 1915 Declaration of Principles drawn up by the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the AAUP and endorsed by that association in 1915-1916. 59 By 1970, the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure had been officially endorsed by eighty-one professional organizations. It had been incorporated, explicitly or by reference, in detail or in principle, in the policies of most of the institutions of higher education in the United States.... 60 In 1971 the AAC and the AAUP created the Commission on Academic Tenure as a separate, autonomous unit. It was to design and carry out its own program of investigation and make its report directly to the academic community and the general public, without reference to the sponsors. This agreement was expressly understood by all members of the commission and has been scrupulously observed. Faculty Tenure, therefore, presents the views of the Commission and not those of the AAC or the AAUP or the Ford Foundation. 61 From Faculty Tenure, the following picture evolves, both from an historical point of view, and as things are now: 62 1. After a varied history of ups and downs, the status of university teachers had sunk to where, by the latter days of the Nineteenth Century, everyone served at the will of the university administrators. Practically no one had formal assurance of continued employment. See Faculty Tenure, 122-23, 127-28, 135. 63 2. In 1900, an egregious endeavor by a most substantial financial backer and sole trustee of a distinguished institution, Stanford University, to bring about the dismissal of an established professor because the financial backer disliked his professional views, served as a catalytic agent toward the development of do's and don'ts regarding dismissal of established university professors. Id. 137-42. The major initial objective was protection of academic freedom, the elimination of thought control, and the outlawing of punishment for unacceptable ideas. Id. 137, 143-44. 64 3. There has evolved the concept of tenure, a conferral of status on proven scholars which, absent considerations not directly involved in the present case (namely, demonstrated incompetence, moral turpitude, financial exigency or program elimination) insures permanent employment from the time of grant of tenure until the reaching of retirement age. 65 4. The status of tenure, effectively precluding, as it inevitably does, for possibly a very long time, the replacement of a less good teacher by a better one, is recognized as carrying with it a duty that great care be exercised in its conferral. 24 Only scholars of proven distinction are deemed to merit tenure. Id. x, 59: 66 In the real world, a probationary period is necessary, and tenured status must rest upon explicit judgment. 67 ... The commission recommends that the award of tenure always be based on an explicit judgment of qualifications, resulting from continuous evaluation of the faculty member during the probationary period, in the light of the institution's stated criteria. 68 (Emphasis in original.) Demonstration of factors well beyond the mere passage of time in service, 25 namely (a) creditable scholarship, (b) accomplished pedagogy, (c) able service to the university in matters associated with its maintenance, operation, growth and continued endurance, and (d) developed collegiality-the capacity to relate well and constructively to the comparatively small bank of scholars on whom the ultimate fate of the university rests 26 -is required by the university, and should be established before a candidate is granted tenure. 69 Faculty members in universities in general who had proven their own worth appreciated the possibility of pollution of the academic atmosphere, in which their own lives were conducted, through indiscriminate admission of insufficiently tested candidates who might prove to be unproductive, uncollegial, or both. 27 70 5. Out of that requirement of demonstration by the would-be tenured teacher of important developing qualifications and qualities, 28 has arisen the concept of probationary status customarily accorded to beginning teachers. 29 Usually, at the outset, employment is for a single year, though regularly the requirement of prior notice (here a year) of non-reappointment extends duration of the service period by the length of the required period of notice. Such employments in probationary status were dealt with in Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972), which held that they created no expectation of continued employment or other property interest and no right to a hearing. 71 Faculty Tenure emphasizes that the probationary status should not be too short, 30 and sets as a desirable maximum seven years of employment in that category (six years of probationary status, with the decision on tenure in the sixth year, and, absent a grant of tenure, one terminal year, with no hope for tenure and no possibility of further reappointment). Id. 61 (Allowing for a full year's notice in the event of an unfavorable decision, this means an effective probationary period of six years ....). 31 72 It is a fact of basic importance that non-renewal, following the running of the established probationary period, is not a dismissal, and is altogether lacking in invidious connotations. 32 There are numerous factors apart from the probationer's level of competence entering into the decision whether to confer tenure-the sine qua non for remaining in a university's employ after expiration of the probationary period. It is not a criticism to be denied tenure. 33 73 The University's system with which we here deal did not extend its probationary status period to the outside maximum allowable under what Faculty Tenure has reported to be the customary guideline. Nor did it shorten it to less than the recommended minimum. The University called for the tenure decision in the fifth year, one year earlier than the maximum allowed and the very minimum suggested in Faculty Tenure, with a terminal sixth year. In higher education generally, a period of probationary status greater than six years (plus one notice year) would be frowned on, and anything longer than that is apt to be deemed to have operated to create actual or de facto tenure. Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972). 74 Obviously, at some point, the teacher is entitled to a decision, and cannot be kept dangling too long. The University, since it was well within the guidelines, was acting in accord with accepted university practices. It was, therefore, entirely appropriate that Mayberry, in his fifth year, was still a probationary teacher. His employment, covered by his contract for the fifth year, would be fully subject to nonrenewal, and, indeed, would have to terminate subject to the extra year required to satisfy notice obligations. Unlike the situation in all previous years, Mayberry, in the fifth year, was no longer eligible for reappointment to further probationary status for another year. 34 The fifth was the last possible year in probationary status. Following it were only two possibilities: (1) he would serve out his sixth, or terminal (no longer probationary), year and then depart, 35 or (2) he would be granted tenure-a significantly different status-effectively a new job. 75 In establishing that, where other, permissible grounds existed supporting a decision not to rehire a teacher, a Board of Education might take into account the First Amendment protected conduct to make it more certain of the correctness of its decision, the Supreme Court held: 76 This is especially true where, as the District Court observed was the case here, the current decision to rehire will accord tenure. The long-term consequences of an award of tenure are of great moment both to the employee and to the employer. They are too significant for us to hold that the Board in this case would be precluded, because it considered constitutionally protected conduct in deciding not to rehire Doyle, from attempting to prove to a trier of fact that quite apart from such conduct Doyle's record was such that he would not have been rehired in any event. 77 Mt. Healthy City Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 286, 97 S.Ct. 568, 575, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). 78 Those consequences of reaching the fifth year as a probationary teacher were well known to Mayberry. They generally pertain to recommended university policy. Under them, Mayberry's old job with the University had to come to an end. Only if he should be selected by the University for the new job-that of tenured professor-might he remain. 79 To reiterate, it was not enough for Mayberry simply to show an exercise of First Amendment rights, followed by a denial of tenure. That post hoc propter hoc approach 36 wrongfully eliminates the manifold other requirements to be satisfied, some quite independent of the candidate's qualifications, before tenure is conferred. 37 If the two quite distinct types of employment: (a) probationary, with no assurance of reappointment after the fixed contract period and (b) tenured, with virtually guaranteed employment until the age of retirement is reached, related to two different employees or candidates for employment, the grounds on which the claims of the plaintiff rest would largely evaporate. Someone from outside the university would have an almost impossible task, given the many and varied, inevitably subjective factors, 38 going into a decision to offer tenure, 39 in establishing that he would have been tendered tenure employment but for something he said or wrote which fell within the protection of the First Amendment. Cf. Franklin v. Atkins, 562 F.2d 1188 (10th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 994, 98 S.Ct. 1645, 56 L.Ed.2d 83 (1978). So far as the probationary employee in his final year is concerned, he is in a comparable status as to what he must prove, since for the one time only he is formally under active consideration for tenure. His advantage lies simply in the fact that improbability will not seem quite so rampant with respect to any claim by him of First Amendment violation because of his prior intimate association with the institution and its faculty. 80 Thus, no inference favorable to Mayberry's case is to be drawn from his previous satisfactory, annually renewed probationary service. The attempt to step up to tenured status introduced too many other considerations which would explain what happened to permit the jury to decide that Mayberry was in some way mistreated simply because his connection with the university was allowed to come to an end after five one-year renewals of his probationary status.