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Faculty Federation defeats darkside of education
By Ruthanne Johnson
rjohn180@mscd.edu

Metro’s tenured faculty gained renewed job security March 8, as the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that a 2003 change in policy violated the constitutional rights of Metro’s veteran faculty.

The legal discrepancy erupted shortly after Metro’s Board of Trustees changed some of the policies in Metro’s 2003 Handbook for Professional Personnel regarding laying off faculty during a financial crisis, explained Timothy Gould, a philosophy professor and chair of the legal committee for the Metro State Faculty Federation, Metro’s faculty union.

“The new policy gave Metro’s president and Board of Trustees the original authority to terminate faculty without regard to tenure,” Gould said. “He decides who gets fired and in what order, and he is the sole and final judge for any appeal.”

The tenured faculty at Metro felt the change was a clear conflict of interest and a violation of their constitutional right to due process, according to Gould.

“The new policies did not consider the priority of a tenured faculty member over a nontenured,” Gould said, explaining that this not only compromised the faculty’s constitutional rights but also negated the advantage of due process attributed specifically to tenure.

Saxe v. the Board of Trustees of Metropolitan State College, the three-year legal battle that resulted from the change, ended in a victory for the faculty union when the court of appeals ruled that the substantive rights of Metro’s tenured faculty had been violated.

“The court’s decision essentially dismantled the board’s policy because it declared the president’s dual role – his ability to both fire and be the judge for the final appeal – unconstitutional,” Gould said.

When asked about the court’s decision, Metro spokeswoman Cathy Lucas said Metro’s administration could not comment on the case while the decision was being reviewed by the attorney general’s office.

“Tenure is a system put in place to protect academic freedom for faculty,” said assistant professor of psychology Bill Henry. With tenure, he said, “faculty can pursue work that may be unpopular and yet do so without fear of retribution.”

Tenure protects professors to do work that some deem unconventional or controversial, and while the administration may need flexibility to deal with a financial crisis, that should not diminish the rights of these veteran educators, Henry said.

“I am pleased with the court’s decision because they restored protection,” Henry said.

Receiving tenure includes a rigorous multiyear probationary period during which the applicant’s work is continually reviewed by collegiate management and faculty peers. Once tenured, an employee cannot be fired unless evidence of incompetence, grossly inappropriate behavior or grave financial difficulty for the institution is presented.

Tenured employees are understood to have priority over nontenured faculty in the event of layoffs, but Metro’s policy changes in 2003 overrode these rights and changed the fundamental concept of tenure, the court ruled.

The faculty handbook was changed shortly after former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens separated Metro from the system of state colleges in Colorado and appointed an independent Board of Trustees to the college. Metro’s new board hired a lawyer to help rewrite the handbook, which outlined the new contractual responsibilities and policies for faculty and staff. Shortly after, then-President Shelia Kaplan announced layoffs in response to existing budgetary difficulties. Altogether, 89 positions were abolished and 53 employees were cut in 2003.