TIPsters, I am hoping that someone out there might have some advice regarding a very sticky and ugly university-related legal issue. Below is a summary of the relevant details. For the record, I am writing this on behalf of my wife - she is too embarrassed and too upset to do anything at the moment.
My wife is a tenured and award winning professor at a local state university. In fact, she was just awarded the university's highest teaching award. This is just to establish that we are not talking about someone with a spotty record. As part of her research, my wife collects data on animal behavior at a local zoo. Both undergraduate and graduate students assist her. One of the graduate students was eventually hired by the zoo as an employee - while still remaining in graduate school. Recently, that student filed sexual harassment charges against an employee at the zoo. As far as we know, the charges were dismissed as groundless (though to be honest we don't know the details because we were not involved). Note that my wife had absolutely no administrative relationship with the zoo and absolutely no control - supervisory or otherwise - over the student as an employee at the zoo. The zoo is simply a place where she and her students collect data, and a place where the student in question had become an employee. At around the same time, my wife was getting increasingly frustrated with the graduate student's progress in the program. One problem is that the student has never written a thesis proposal - even though some of the data collected at the zoo were initially intended for inclusion in a thesis. My wife informed the student that she was not to collect any more data at the zoo until she completed her proposal. As soon as the proposal is written and approved, the student can resume data collection. If my wife has done anything wrong, it was to allow any data to be collected before the proposal is written. As it is, she has simply informed the student that she has to write the proposal before continuing. The student became very angry at this. She has now filed formal charges against my wife with the affirmative action office on campus. The charge? That my wife was "retaliating" against the student for filing sexual harassment charges against he employee at the zoo. There are many many many reasons why these charges are simply absurd. Two stand out, though: 1) How can my wife be retaliating when she has no relationship with the person actually charged? Apparently, this is "retaliation by proxy" - that is, my wife is apparently retaliating on behalf of someone else. 2) How is it retaliation to require a student to write a thesis proposal - something which is required for all thesis students? A couple of other relevant facts: -- The student has a history of personal issues and previous interpersonal problems -- The student has refused mediation, insisting on filing formal charges without first going that step -- The student has told people "I am going to take her down..." and made other threatening statements. That's the jist of it. There are lots of other details, but that is most of it. Here is the problem: The University is taking the charges seriously and proceeding with an investigation. Further, they apparently think that their role is to advocate for the student, and that they have no requirement to support the faculty member. We have also been told that anything we do against the student - such as filing a restraining order after the student has made threats - would be considered further retaliation. It seems that my wife is being asked to prove herself innocent- that she is assumed to be guilty before things even begin. We have had to hire an attorney at our own expense - and the attorney says this could get pretty costly. I like to believe in the system enough to think that this will eventually be resolved - that the charges will be recognized as absurd. I would like to think that would have occurred already. But, nothing will apparently be resolved until we have spent a lot of money and gone through a lot of stress. In the mean time we really feel like our family is potentially in danger. So - does ANYONE have any advice? How do you defend yourself against such charges? Thanks in advance.... -- Jim Dougan --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
