Journalism prof sues Metro board

Suit alleges former provost tampered with tenure documents

By Bill Keran
The Metropolitan

A former journalism professor  has charged that Metro is guilty of breach of contract and violated his rights to due process and equal protection.

J.P. McLaughlin filed suit against the Board of Trustees for the State Colleges in Colorado, which oversees Metro, in early September.

McLaughlin is seeking reinstatement to the job he lost last year and back pay. Since his termination at Metro, he has been working part-time at The Denver Post  as a copy editor.

A spokeswoman for the board said she could not comment on pending litigation.

McLaughlin said in court documents that former Metro provost Sharon Siverts ordered more than 100 pages be removed from  his portfolio for tenure.

He was later denied tenure because his dossier was incomplete, the documents said.

ãI was told by someone in the deanâs office that the provost had called down there and said she didnât want to deal with a huge dossier,ä he said. ãI was told that came down from Siverts, not from her office, but from her.ä

McLaughlin said his portfolio was approved by the Journalism department, the Faculty Senate and Joan Foster, former dean of Letters, Arts and Sciences, before Siverts evaluated it.

ãThen when it got to Sivertsâ office, all of a sudden, I was somehow unfit to continue teaching,ä McLaughlin said. ãHowever, they wanted me to stay under an administrative contract to do the same damn thing, which I came to find out was also a violation of their own rules.ä

McLaughlin stayed with the school for another year as editor of The Capitol Reporter, a  legislative student newspaper, in spring 1996 and taught two classes that fall.

Siverts has since resigned her post as provost and moved to Oregon. She could not be reached for comment.

However, in an October 1996 interview with The Metropolitan, she denied that she had anything to do with the documents being removed from the dossier.

ãThe schoolâs position is that the suit has no merit,ä Metro Communications Director Sherry Patten said.
McLaughlin said that the college had also gotten away from its roots as a teaching institution.

ãI somehow came under criticism for not doing enough research, and it was my understanding when I went to that institution that it was a teaching institution, not a research institution.

ãI donât know what theyâre trying to do, make this the Harvard of the west or what. This is basically an urban college, and theyâre looking for teachers.

ãThatâs what I believed when I (started here) and thatâs what I still believe the institution is for. And this crap about Îyouâre not doing enough researchâ is just that ÷ crap.ä