Gaines


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Dr. Stanley O. Gaines, Jr., Archive:
Date: 3/2/00
Type: Letter
To: AAUP
From: Dr. Stanley O. Gaines, Jr.
Re: Requesting Investigation
Att: NA

APPEAL TO AAUP FOR INVESTIGATION


March, 2, 2000


Dr. Mary Burgan
General Secretary
AAUP

Dear Dr. Burgan:


Two weeks ago, I sent you a letter (via the AAUP listserv) requesting, once again, that the national office of the AAUP conduct a full investigation into Pomona College's violations of AAUP standards concerning academic freedom and tenure. Prior to the aforementioned letter, I faxed you a judicial decision favoring former Pomona College Professor Andrew Corin. The judicial decision, which was rendered in November 1998, calls for Pomona College to hold a full and fair tenure review of Prof. Corin (which did not happen back in 1992-93, when Prof. Corin was denied tenure). The judicial decision also awards costs to Prof. Corin. So far (i.e., March 2000, more than a year after the ruling), Pomona College has failed to hold a new review or compensate Prof. Corin, even though the College did not appeal the judicial decision.

Several years ago, Prof. Corin asked the national office of the AAUP for help regarding his case. At that time (which was before Pomona College had an AAUP chapter), the national AAUP told Prof. Corin that he would have to show that a neutral third party had found in his favor. Clearly, by this time, Prof. Corin has shown such a finding.

As you know, in addition to the Corin case, we have my own situation. Last summer, you indicated your refusal to authorize a full investigation into Pomona College's violations of AAUP standards concerning academic freedom and tenure. Your refusal, which ignored two separate requests from the Pomona College AAUP chapter for intervention from the national AAUP, was based solely on Dean Hans Palmer's "insistence" that I had failed to follow the College's stated grievance procedure. Even after I showed you the discrepancy between (1) the grievance procedure from the 1998-99 Faculty Handbook (which I *did* follow) and (2) a new grievance procedure proposed by the Executive Committee of the Faculty in Fall 1999 (which Dean Palmer -- a member of the Executive Committee -- claimed I *should have* followed, even though to this day the proposed new grievance procedure has not been voted upon by the faculty), you refused to authorize a full investigation.

At this point, it is obvious that you have failed to authorize a full investigation of Pomona College *in spite of* abundant evidence that the College -- which, according to its own Faculty Handbook, is supposed to "implement" the AAUP's policy on academic freedom and tenure -- has violated, and continues to violate, AAUP standards regarding academic freedom and tenure. Please note that the present letter focuses on procedural violations against Prof. Corin and myself. I could also cite evidence of discrimination against me in particular. However, the EEOC and the NAACP already are conducting separate investigations on that issue; and Associate General Secretary Jordan Kurland used the EEOC investigation as an excuse to avoid having the national AAUP investigate acts of discrimination at Pomona College. Thus, the present letter deals specifically with procedural violations.


I will persist in pressing the case for Prof. Corin and myself. So far, the national AAUP has failed to follow its own procedures for implementing AAUP standards, as described by Kurland in a 1980 _Academe_ article. For reasons that you have not stated, you have refused to authorize an investigation of Pomona College. Hence, it will be necessary for me to continue to request such an investigation.

Sincerely,
Stan Gaines
Assistant Professor
Pomona College

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