Opinion ID: 161366
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of Ad Hoc Faculty Status

Text: After her termination from the university, and at the urging of her students, Dr. Aquilino sought “ad hoc” appointment—an unpaid, non-benefit-eligible position–to KU’s graduate faculty. The university rejected her repeated applications for appointment. Dr. Aquilino sought this volunteer status to allow her to continue working with five of her graduate students (not including Diane Boze), of whom several were in the Art History Department, one was in the History Department, and another was connected with the Latin American Studies Program. Faculty members in both the History Department and the Latin American Studies Program -9- recommended approval of Dr. Aquilino’s request. The Art History Department voted against making such a recommendation. The final decision in all three cases was made by a university dean, who told jurors that he denied the appointments because, in his estimation, such a role for Dr. Aquilino was inconsistent with KU’s earlier decision to deny her tenure. KU argues that since the ad hoc status Dr. Aquilino sought was unpaid, and since the various appointments would have commenced after her termination, its refusal to grant the appointments did not alter the terms and conditions of Dr. Aquilino’s employment. As a result, the university contends, Dr. Aquilino suffered no “demonstrable impact on [her] current employment.” Appellant Br. at 34. Dr. Aquilino maintains that the university’s decision to deny her ad hoc status effectively stripped her of her remaining graduate students, thereby causing additional harm to her future employment prospects. Echoing her position with regard to Diane Boze, she points to her testimony in which she told jurors that this harm included diminution of her professional reputation as well as the personal embarrassment and humiliation she experienced at the loss of her students. She also testified that prospective employers would infer that her students were taken away because of wrongdoing on her part. Our reasoning with respect to Dr. Aquilino’s removal from Ms. Boze’s dissertation committee guides our analysis here. We see little or no difference -10- between the harms she allegedly suffered, on the one hand, by her removal from the Boze dissertation committee and, on the other, her inability—due to the university’s refusal to grant her ad hoc faculty status—to continue working with other graduate students. Both spring from the common claim that the removal of Dr. Aquilino’s graduate students constitutes an adverse employment action because it adversely affected her future employment prospects. We have rejected that argument with respect to Ms. Boze; we do so again with respect to KU’s refusal to make Dr. Aquilino an ad hoc member of its graduate faculty.