Developments Relating to Censure by the Association

Acting on behalf of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, members of the Association’s staff communicate during the course of each year with administrations under censure. The staff offers its assistance and that of Committee A in bringing about changes at the institutions that would enable the committee to recommend to the annual meeting that the censure be removed. A summary of developments at institutions on the list of censured administrations appears annually in the issue of Academe (prior to 1979, the Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors) that immediately precedes the annual meeting.

In the statements that follow, in chronological order according to the date of imposition of censure, we note developments at the listed institutions for the year through April 1, 2009. We will report relevant actions of significance that occur after April 1 to Committee A, the Council, and the Ninety-fifth Annual Meeting at the sessions of these bodies between June 5 and June 13. The list of censured administrations, which appears in each issue of Academe, cites the published report that was the basis for the censure in each case.

Gregory F. Scholtz
Director, Program in Academic Freedom and Tenure

Grove City College (Pennsylvania), 1963

The published report concluded that a professor was dismissed without having been afforded opportunity for a hearing and other safeguards of academic due process.

The college administration continues to indicate no interest in discussing the censure and its potential removal.

Frank Phillips College (Texas), 1969

The investigating committee’s report found that the administration summarily dismissed a faculty member in her tenth year of service. The faculty member’s case was resolved many years ago, but the absence of a system of faculty tenure remains at issue.

During this past year, the administration has not responded to invitations from the Association’s staff to discuss potential changes in the college’s policies.

Concordia Seminary (Missouri), 1975

The administration of Concordia Seminary was placed on the censure list for having terminated a professor’s services because external ecclesiastical authorities objected to his views on subjects that were within his area of academic competence.

The staff’s invitations to discuss the censure situation have gone unanswered this year as in previous years.

Murray State University (Kentucky), 1976

Censure followed the dismissal without demonstration of cause of nine faculty members who had served beyond the maximum allowable probationary period under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Issues of redress and deficient policies continue to remain unresolved. 

State University of New York, 1978

Censure followed a report on the dismissal of more than one hundred faculty members in the state university system on grounds of retrenchment. The report concluded that the administration had acted without demonstrating the existence of a state of financial exigency mandating the termination of continuing appointments.

Over the years the staff has conveyed to successive chancellors of the State University of New York concerns over specific policies and procedures governing faculty appointments. Issues of redress also remain to be resolved. No new developments over the past year can be reported. 

Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas, 1978

Censure was imposed after the summary dismissal of a faculty member in violation of his academic freedom. The case of the dismissed faculty member was resolved many years ago, but the policies of the college, which in 1996 became part of the University of Arkansas, do not provide any members of the faculty with continuous tenure.

The current college administration initially expressed interest in adopting AAUP-supported policies, but this past year it has continued its subsequent unresponsiveness to proposals that discussions of changes in policies resume. 

Nichols College (Massachusetts), 1980

The dismissal of a nontenured faculty member in the middle of the academic year for reasons that violated the faculty member’s academic freedom resulted in the imposition of censure.

As was the case last year, the administration did not respond during the past twelve months to the staff’s letters proposing discussion of the censure.

Yeshiva University (New York), 1982

Censure resulted from a report’s findings that the university’s financial condition did not warrant terminating the appointments of three tenured professors and that the administration had declined to justify its actions before a faculty hearing body.

The three cases were settled several years ago, but deficiencies in the university’s policies governing faculty appointments have remained uncorrected. The staff’s letters to the administration over the past year have gone unanswered.

American International College (Massachusetts), 1983

The published report found that the administration dismissed a faculty member without opportunity for a hearing and did not contest the faculty member’s allegation that the dismissal resulted from his attempt to form a faculty union.

Responding by telephone last fall to staff communications, the current president expressed interest in the steps that might be taken to resolve the censure. He stated that a faculty committee had been formed to oversee revision of the faculty handbook. No further developments can as yet be reported.

Metropolitan Community Colleges (Missouri), 1984

The investigating committee’s report disputed the administration’s reasons—financial exigency and decreasing enrollment—for terminating eight faculty appointments and concluded that the decisions were designed to reduce the size of the full-time faculty in favor of engaging part-time teachers and assigning overloads.

This past year, as in 2007, the administration expressed some interest in reviewing its faculty policies in the light of AAUP recommendations, but revised policies have not yet been shared with the staff. An issue of redress still requires resolution.

Talladega College (Alabama), 1986

Censure followed a published report that found the administration’s termination of the services of three professors to be in violation of their academic freedom.

A letter on the censure sent this year to a new president of the college has gone unanswered.

Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, 1987

The investigating committee’s report concluded that the administration, in dismissing a tenured professor upon learning that she had remarried following a previous Catholic marriage that ended in civil divorce, denied her academic due process and violated her personal rights.

As in previous years, this past year witnessed no developments that might lead toward the removal of this censure.

Husson University (Maine), 1987

The investigating committee concluded that the termination of a professor’s services violated his academic freedom to disagree with the administration about university policies.

While the professor’s case was settled many years ago, deficiencies in the institution’s official policies remain unresolved.

Hillsdale College (Michigan), 1988

The investigating committee’s report found that a non-reappointed faculty member had been denied Association-supported procedural safeguards and that there was prima facie evidence of an academic freedom violation.

The administration again this past year did not respond to the staff’s letters inviting discussion of these issues.

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (North Carolina), 1989

Censure resulted from a report on actions by a board of trustees that appointed an academic dean over unanimous faculty objections and refused to reappoint two adjunct faculty members for reasons that violated their academic freedom.

A new seminary president wrote to the Association in 2004 that the administration, faculty, and trustees “do not recognize the AAUP as having any authority with respect to how the institution functions. Therefore, this will be the last and only time I will respond to your correspondence.” Through this past year, he has continued to hold this position.

Catholic University of America, 1990

Censure followed a report concluding that the administration suspended a professor and kept him from teaching in his area of competence in violation of his academic freedom. The trustees subsequently adopted a statement on academic freedom that Committee A found to be severely deficient.

The university’s current president, writing last November, reiterated his position that the staff’s suggested steps toward removing the censure are not “in the realm of possibility.”

Dean College (Massachusetts), 1992

The investigating committee’s report concluded that the administration terminated the services of two faculty members because of activities that warranted protection under principles of academic freedom. Shortly after publication of the report, the administration summarily dismissed a third faculty member.

While these cases were settled several years ago, the college’s official policies remain deficient in several respects. Staff letters this past year to the administration have not elicited a response.

Baltimore City Community College, 1992

The published report described the termination of a tenured professor’s appointment without requisite procedural safeguards. The administration asserted that tenure commitments no longer applied because of the transfer of the college from municipal to state control. The report rejected the administration’s contention that a new institution had resulted, finding that in function the institution remained essentially the same.

Staff letters this past year to the current president of the college have not been answered.

Loma Linda University (California), 1992

Censure was based on a report dealing with the administration’s dismissal of three professors without affordance of academic due process as called for in the 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings.

Litigation initiated by two of the professors resulted several years ago in out-of-court settlements. Two years ago, following discussion with the university’s chief executive officer regarding institutional policies, the Association’s staff provided specific proposals for resolving differences. The proposals, and reminders sent subsequently, have brought no response.

Clarkson College (Nebraska), 1993

The investigating committee’s report found that the administration terminated the services of four faculty members on short notice without a hearing and that the college’s policies failed to afford minimal protections of academic due process.

Three of the cases that led to the censure were resolved several years ago. The staff letters this past year to the administration on outstanding issues have gone unanswered.

North Greenville College (South Carolina), 1993

The published report concluded that the administration in dismissing two long-serving professors wrongly treated the cases as nonrenewals of term appointments instead of dismissals and that the actions violated the professors’ academic freedom.

One of the two cases of concern has been resolved, but staff letters to the administration addressing remaining matters continue to go unanswered.

Savannah College of Art and Design, 1993

Censure followed an investigating committee report’s finding that the administration disregarded the 1940 Statement of Principles in dismissing two faculty members without having demonstrated cause. The report also found a prima facie case of violation of academic freedom in the termination of the services of six other members of the faculty.

During the past year, the staff’s letters to the administration seeking resumption of previous discussions have brought no response.

University of Bridgeport, 1994

The investigating committee’s report found that two tenured professors were released with only thirty days’ notice and the services of several other tenured faculty members were terminated for reasons of “institutional need.”

Two of the faculty cases were resolved several years ago. Concerns about official policies remain. The administration continues to be unresponsive to staff letters inviting further discussion.

Benedict College (South Carolina), 1994

Censure resulted from an investigation of actions by the administration to terminate the services of three professors. Settlements in the three cases were reached many years ago, but the censure has continued because of deficiencies in the college’s official policies.

A supplementary 2005 report described the current president’s dismissal of two professors on grounds of insubordination for having declined to change student grades and his punishment of two AAUP chapter officers for having supported the right of the professors to grade according to their best professional judgment.

No new developments over the past twelve months at Benedict College can be reported.

Bennington College, 1995

The investigating committee’s report dealt with the administration’s termination of the services of more than two dozen faculty members on grounds of financial exigency and the governing board’s abolition of the further granting of tenure in favor of term appointments indefinitely renewable at the administration’s discretion. Most of the released faculty members pursued litigation, which led to an out-of-court financial settlement.

Subsequent cases of dismissal and nonreappointment remain unresolved. The administration did not respond to the staff’s letters over the past year inviting discussion of these cases and of deficiencies in the college’s policies governing faculty appointments.

Alaska Pacific University, 1995

Censure resulted from a report on the release of seven faculty members, many of them entitled to the protections of tenure. The report found that a declared financial exigency was not the basis for the terminations, that an effected discontinuance of programs also did not justify some of them, and that severance arrangements were extremely inadequate.

Staff letters to the administration this past year have gone unanswered.

St. Bonaventure University (New York), 1996

The published report concluded that the administration, in terminating the appointments of eighteen tenured professors on grounds of financial exigency, failed to provide adjudicative hearings and refused to allow the presence of counsel in the appeals procedure. The president, in subsequently denying reappointment to an assistant professor, made an unsupported aspersion about the professor’s character that Committee A found reprehensible.

Settlements were reached several years ago in the above-noted cases that were contested. Still to be achieved, however, is the adoption of acceptable policies for terminating appointments because of financial exigency. In discussions with the staff that occurred last fall, the current university president and AAUP chapter leaders indicated a strong interest in working together to accomplish this final step. The staff has offered its assistance in facilitating the process.

National Park Community College (Arkansas), 1996

The report of the investigating committee found that the administration, in terminating the services of two instructors, provided scant notice and did not afford requisite safeguards of academic due process.

Again this past year, staff letters inviting discussion of issues that need to be resolved have not been answered.

Saint Meinrad School of Theology (Indiana), 1997

Censure followed a report on the dismissal of a tenured professor for having joined in signing a letter to the pope calling for continued discussion of ordaining women. Although the school had adopted the 1940 Statement of Principles, the administration rejected requests to give the professor a faculty hearing.

A letter sent last fall to the school’s new president proposing a discussion of issues of concern has not brought a response.

Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 1997

Censure resulted from a report on the dismissal of five senior faculty members at the end of the second year of a three-year term contract with a year of severance salary. The report found that the actions were tantamount to summary dismissals in violation of the 1940 Statement of Principles.

This past year, at the request of the college’s president, the staff recommended revisions of the institution’s official policies to bring them into conformity with Association-supported standards. Redress for the dismissed faculty members has also been discussed. Further developments are awaited.

Brigham Young University, 1998

The investigating committee’s report found that the administration’s actions in denying tenure to a faculty member raised issues of academic freedom and that the climate for academic freedom at Brigham Young University was distressingly poor.

The administration has continued to indicate a lack of interest in discussing the censure and its potential removal.

University of the District of Columbia, 1998

A published report found that the administration terminated the appointments of 125 faculty members on grounds of financial exigency without having demonstrated the need for massive terminations and without having provided other safeguards of academic due process.

A new president who took office this past fall has not responded to the staff’s invitation to enter into discussion of outstanding issues. Moreover, he has announced plans to discontinue the university’s undergraduate education department, which has seventeen faculty members. Plans for extensive restructuring indicate that other programs and departments are also facing closure.

Lawrence Technological University (Michigan), 1998

An investigating committee’s report found that not even minimal safeguards of academic due process were afforded to a professor whose appointment was terminated. The case was settled, and two additional cases the following year, one involving dismissal and the other suspension, also ended with out-of-court settlements.

In December 2007, the current president informed the staff of changes in process regarding the university’s policies. The staff acknowledged several positive developments and went on to propose additional revisions that would help gain a Committee A recommendation for lifting the censure. No subsequent developments can be reported.

Johnson & Wales University (Rhode Island), 1999

The investigating committee’s report on the nonreappointment of two first-year faculty members who had disagreed with educational policies at the institution found that the administration had violated their academic freedom.

The administration, as in previous years, did not respond over the past twelve months to letters regarding the censure from the Association’s staff.

Albertus Magnus College (Connecticut), 2000

Censure resulted from a report on the administration’s suspension of a nontenured faculty member for the duration of his two-year appointment. The report found that he was dismissed in violation of the 1940 Statement of Principles and the college’s own policies.

The professor’s case was settled several years ago, but the staff’s periodic invitations to the college president to discuss remaining issues continue to yield no response.

Charleston Southern University (South Carolina), 2001

The investigating committee’s report found that the administration’s action to dismiss a long-serving faculty member may well have been in violation of his academic freedom and that its denial of reappointment to another faculty member after six years of service was at odds with the Association’s recommended procedural standards.

The staff’s letters this past year to the administration, seeking a resumption of earlier correspondence about the censure, have gone unanswered.

University of Dubuque, 2002

The published report found that the administration, in terminating the appointments of two tenured professors on grounds of financial exigency and removing them from further teaching prior to the expiration of their existing contracts, denied them procedural safeguards to which they were entitled.

The letters that the staff sent to the University of Dubuque administration this past year did not lead to a response.

Meharry Medical College (Tennessee), 2005

Censure resulted from the report of an investigating committee concluding that the administration violated the 1940 Statement of Principles in terminating the appointments of eleven professors. In the cases of two of the professors the report found unrebutted evidence that the administration violated their academic freedom. The notices of termination were found to be severely inadequate. An additional concern was the issuance of ten-year term contracts as a substitute for indefinite tenure.

Last fall the staff provided comment and recommendations regarding a revised handbook prepared by a joint administration-faculty committee. No response to the recommendations has thus far been received.

University of the Cumberlands (Kentucky), 2005

Censure followed a report on the coerced oral resignation of one professor in the middle of an academic year and the nonrenewal of the appointment of a second. The report found in both cases that the administration failed to afford academic due process and, with respect to the second case, that it violated the professor’s academic freedom.

As has been true since censure was imposed, the staff’s letters last year to the president inviting discussion of the issues of concern have gone unanswered.

Virginia State University, 2005

The investigating committee’s report concluded that the administration, in dismissing two tenured professors following a post-tenure review, did not afford them basic protections of academic due process.

The two cases were subsequently settled, and revised policies and procedures proposed by the AAUP staff have largely been adopted. Concerns noted in last year’s account of developments relating to censure, regarding issues of tenure and academic due process in the business school, now appear to be close to resolution. Further developments this spring are awaited.

Our Lady of Holy Cross College (Louisiana), 2007

Censure followed a report on the college president’s dismissal of a professor who, in his capacity as elected head of the faculty senate, engaged in an increasingly sharp dispute with the president over a revised salary schedule. Informing the professor that he was dismissed, the  president told him that he would be paid until his annual contract expired but that he was to vacate the campus immediately. The professor had no opportunity for a hearing, nor did the president provide any reason for acting as he did. The Association’s investigating committee, meeting with the president, pressed him to explain. All he would say was that he acted “for the good of the college.”

The investigating committee concluded that the president had acted in disregard of the 1940 Statement of Principles and the 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings. The committee described the atmosphere for academic freedom as “fragile to begin with,” because all faculty appointments were for a single academic year, renewable at the president’s discretion with nonrenewal not subject to appeal. The committee concluded that the atmosphere had become “yet more precarious” as a result of the professor’s dismissal and banishment.

The college president has not responded to letters from the Association’s staff explaining the steps involved in removal of an AAUP censure and suggesting a topic for initial discussion.

Bastyr University (Washington), 2007

The report leading to censure dealt with the effective dismissal of three senior faculty members, all without academic due process and in apparent violation of their academic freedom. The first was banned from the campus during the remaining four months of her term of appointment. The second and third were notified two days before the expiration of their existing appointments that they would not be reappointed, and they were denied further access to the campus. The report found that the exclusive use of “at-will” faculty appointments, terminable by the administration at any time, contributed to an unacceptable climate for academic freedom and due process.

The administration notified the staff last October that “great progress toward agreement on many of the key issues before us” had been made, and the staff awaits an opportunity to review revised institutional policies.

The Association’s Special Committee on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Universities served as the investigating body in the following three cases.

University of New Orleans, 2007

A sharp drop in enrollment when the university reopened after Hurricane Katrina, coupled with a poor prognosis for future funding, led the administration to formulate a restructuring plan to cut programs, faculty, and staff. The  plan was approved that spring by the governing board, together with a declaration of financial exigency and implementing procedures. The report on the investigation found that the protections of tenure were largely disregarded in selecting professors for furlough and potential dismissal. Moreover, the need for the restructuring actions appeared to decrease steadily as the time for commencing furloughs approached. An initial administration estimate indicated that the full-time faculty would be reduced by more than eighty positions. An unexpectedly large number of faculty resignations and retirements occurred in spring 2006, however. By early June, the provost reported the number of affected faculty members as reduced to sixteen, seven of whom submitted appeals that they pursued, unsuccessfully in each case, through the level of the system’s president. The Association’s report concluded that the administration had not shown a need for placement and continuance on furlough in any of these cases.

Immediately after censure was imposed in June 2007, the Association was advised of reinstatement offers in some cases. The AAUP staff talked with university administrative officers about potential reinstatement or an alternative resolution in additional cases, and by this writing all but one of the cases known to the Association have been resolved, with action on the final case deferred pending further efforts to agree on a settlement.

With the cases largely resolved, the Association turned its focus toward modifications in the official university policies on financial exigency. In November 2007, an Association letter to the university’s administrative officers proposed specific revisions in the 2006 procedures the board had approved. The administration’s reply was confined to expressing thanks for sharing the proposed revisions and saying that they had been carefully considered. Specific actions did not follow, however, and the staff’s inquiries this past year have brought no word of further developments.

Loyola University New Orleans, 2007

Loyola University New Orleans suffered less damage from Hurricane Katrina than did the city’s other investigated universities. In April 2006, the administration circulated a plan, called “Pathways,” that had the stated purpose of making the university’s operations and programs more effective in the post-hurricane city. The plan included the discontinuance of a number of academic programs, not on grounds of financial exigency (the grounds for cutbacks at the other New Orleans universities), but primarily because of educational considerations. Eliminating the programs was to result in the terminations of the appointments of eleven tenured professors and six probationary professors who previously had been notified of reappointment.

The university’s published procedures for program discontinuance, which are fully consistent with AAUP-recommended standards, require evaluation of proposed actions by an elected faculty body under criteria established by the faculty senate. The administration went forward with its Pathways plan without the participation of these two faculty bodies, both of which sharply criticized the plan’s substance as well as the process the administration was following. Successive “no-confidence” votes by the senate and by an overwhelming majority of the faculty of the university’s largest college did not prevent the adoption of the plan by the trustees at the board’s May 2006 meeting.

Notifications of termination sent to the seventeen professors in June informed them that they would receive a year of severance salary but would have no further teaching or other responsibilities, that they were to vacate their offices within two weeks, and that they would no longer have access to the campus. Some of the professors pointed out that they had already been assigned courses for the next term and that new instructors would need to be engaged to teach them.

Eleven of the affected professors, eight with tenure, filed for a hearing. Proceedings before the faculty’s elected hearing body in each case took place between November 2006 and March 2007. The hearing body unanimously found in all of the cases that the administration failed to follow required procedures, failed to relocate the professor in an available suitable position, and, regarding those with tenure, failed to provide adequate severance salary. With respect to all of the tenured professors, the hearing body recommended reinstatement. With the Association’s investigators having concluded that the administration had effectively dismissed the professors summarily, thereby violating the 1940 Statement of Principles, the annual meeting imposed censure in June 2007.

The university president’s response to the hearing body came late in June 2007, declining the body’s recommendations in each case. Seven of the professors initiated litigation. Depositions have been taken over the past year and a half, pretrial briefs have been filed, and in March the trial judge rejected motions by the defense attorneys for summary judgment. The president, repeatedly urged by the AAUP staff to resolve these cases, reiterated last fall that he “cannot discuss or act on anything under litigation.”

Tulane University, 2007

Tulane University’s uptown campus was able to reopen in January 2006, despite substantial flooding brought on by Hurricane Katrina. The downtown medical school and university hospital, flooded much more extensively, were not able to reopen completely until the following fall.

The university’s governing board had acted on December 8, 2005, to declare a state of financial exigency. On the next day notifications of release were issued to approximately two hundred faculty members, most of them clinical faculty in the medical school. The two hundred included fifty-eight with tenure, thirty-four of them in the medical school, eighteen in the engineering school, and six in the business school.

The AAUP investigators found that the medical school decisions were made by the vice president for health sciences with little regard for tenure and often without having informed the professor’s department chair. Only one of the medical school cases was pursued to a grievance, and the school’s grievance committee decided that evaluating the criteria for termination was beyond its scope.

A grievance regarding the engineering school was pursued much further, although it too eventually failed. The largest department notified of discontinuance, mechanical engineering, complained to the institution’s Senate Committee on Faculty Tenure, Freedom, and Responsibility, arguing that the department was self-sustaining. The administration provided a written statement that commented on the financial situation in general terms without explaining why mechanical engineering had been selected for closure. The senate committee found that the discontinuance could not have been for financial reasons and that the administration had made no effort to relocate the affected professors in other suitable positions. The case then went to Tulane’s governing board, which concurred in the administration’s position on all issues.

The Association’s investigating body concluded that the administration acted in disregard of the 1940 Statement of Principles and derivative AAUP-supported standards in the following ways: declining to provide reasons for selecting particular programs and faculty appointments for termination; declining to seek relocation of released professors in other suitable positions; and, in releasing professors, making no distinction, except for providing notice or severance salary, between tenured and nontenured members of the faculty. The 2007 annual meeting imposed censure.

Following the appearance of the Association’s report with its critique of certain Tulane policies and procedures, the university senate established a special committee to examine them and propose modifications. Tulane’s president had expressed unwillingness to ask the governing board to change the provisions on financial exigency before the existing state of financial exigency had ended. The senate’s special committee formulated a draft document of “interim” revisions that the full senate approved at a meeting in October 2007. Its provisions stressed the need to protect tenure and particularly to proceed from nontenured to tenured faculty in determining the order of layoff. They also specified, on the matter of relocation to another position, that released tenured faculty would have a preference over any other candidates.

Two months later, the governing board acted to “end the state of financial exigency,” and in fall 2008 the revised policies and procedures were formally adopted and incorporated into the faculty handbook.

Remaining to be resolved have been two issues of redress. The university president stated at a university senate meeting this past February that he would be receptive to a call from the Association to discuss what needs to be done to bring the censure to closure. Resulting discussion with him has led in one case to a settlement offer and in the other to an understanding that further review will occur. These developments will be reviewed by Committee A in June, prior to the 2009 annual meeting.

University of New Haven (2008)

The investigating committee reported on a new dean’s action to terminate the services of an English department lecturer in her eighth year of full-time non-tenuretrack appointment following six years as a part-time instructor. The dean acted against her at a time when her department chair and tenured colleagues testified to her value on the faculty and recommended her promotion. The dean had dealt with a student complaint against the lecturer, learned of records in the dean’s office of previous complaints, and concluded that she had shown a pattern of inappropriate behavior toward her students. Having the authority to deny a non-tenuretrack lecturer further appointment, he moved to release her from the faculty once her existing term of appointment expired. A faculty hearing committee upheld grievances filed by the lecturer on all counts and recommended her multiyear appointment, but the president rejected its findings and recommendation.

On the matter of the dean’s substituting his judgment for that of the lecturer and her faculty colleagues on her assessment of student academic performance, the investigating committee found that his doing so was at odds with the principle of faculty authority in this area as set forth in Committee A’s statement The Assignment of Course Grades and Student Appeals. The committee found that the lecturer was entitled under the 1940 Statement of Principles to tenure’s protections against involuntary termination. Finding that she was not afforded those protections, the committee concluded that the administration in dismissing her acted in disregard of the 1940 Statement and the complementary 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings.

This past January the lecturer, who had initiated litigation, informed the Association of a satisfactory settlement of her case. The Association’s staff then invited the president, with the issue of redress resolved, to discuss potential changes in university policies and practices that could lead to removal of the censure. The staff has provided specific proposals, the adoption of which should preclude the recurrence of a case such as that of the lecturer. The administration has not as yet provided a response.