There was an interesting mistrial announced this month in a discrimination case against the University of Iowa law school. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on a 14th amendment claim by the part-time legal writing professor who claims that she was passed over for a full-time position and then lost her adjunct position due to hiring bias against conservatives. Teresa Wagner (left) worked for pro-life causes and says that law professor Randall Bezanson (right), a former law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, campaigned against her hiring (Blackmun wrote the Roe v. Wade decision). She further noted that only one faculty member at Iowa is a registered Republican.
The jurors actually rejected Wagner’s First Amendment claim but deadlocked on her 14th Amendment claim.
What is particularly interesting about the case is that Iowa claims that Wagner blew her interview, which was taped. However, the law school then erased the tape.
She then introduced an email in which Iowa law professor Jon Carlson (right) expressing concerns “that some people may be opposed to Teresa serving in any role, in part at least because they so despise her politics (and especially her activism about it).”
Wagner, 47, is an Iowa law school graduate who has worked as an adjunct professor at George Mason University’s law school. She has also worked for the Family Research Council, a staunchly conservative group that opposes same-sex marriage as well as the National Right to Life Committee.
In late 2006 she applied for the full-time position at the law school.
Of around 50 applicants, Wagner was one of only five offered a chance to make on-campus presentations and had received letters of recommendation from some of the university’s staff. Yet, the position was ultimately given to Matt Williamson. Wagner pointed out that Williamson has never practiced law and had no published works. Moreover, she noted that he is an ardent liberal who frequently criticized Republicans.
Carlson wrote his email to the school’s dean, Carolyn Jones, the day after the faculty rejected Wagner for the position. However, he told the jury that his email also noted that he saw no evidence of bias and that he was simply making the inquiry to be assured that Wagner had been treated fairly. He was joined by a line of law school professors who told the jury that Wagner in her faculty presentation dismissed the role of teaching legal analysis as part of the school’s “Legal Analysis, Research and Writing” academic program. They said that they did not appreciate Wagner’s emphasis on simple grammatical structure in legal writings rather than legal analysis. In defense of Iowa, top schools often emphasize such analysis in their writing programs to reinforce the overall curriculum and training.
Notably, the University of Iowa was the subject of a complaint in 2007 over alleged liberal bias in its hiring practices by Mark Moyar, another conservative. He complained about not getting an interview with the History Department as opposed to less qualified but more liberal candidates. That complaint was rejected.
In this case, Iowa insisted in court that it was Wagner who injected her political beliefs into the process, not any faculty member.
The problem with these challenges is that hiring an academic is not easily broken down to easily identifiable criteria. Most candidates have strong resumes and great enthusiasm for these jobs. Professors have to make what are often difficult predictions about a person’s likely success in the classroom and scholarly work. That is not easily quantified in a court of law. It is notably however that the jury would reject the free speech claim but deadlock on the 14th Amendment discrimination claim. The two claims seem inherent linked and one would have thought that the absence of sufficient proof on one would carry over to the other.
Notably, U.S. magistrate Judge Thomas J. Shields originally declared in court that the entire case was deadlocked but later determined that the initial information was incorrect and that the jury had reached a verdict on only the one claims. Wagner is now seeking a re-trial.
This would be the continuation of a rather hard-fought case. Her lawsuit was dismissed by federal district-court judge on the grounds that the defendant had immunity as an individual and a university official. However, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit revived the lawsuit and held that Ms. Wagner had sufficient evidence to infer that the decisions not to hire her had been motivated by illegal viewpoint bias.
Source: Des Moines Register
Sounds like TonyC knows what he is talking about.
TonyC—does this mean that you don’t have to take backups on external drives anymore? I got one for free with the laptop, but never used it.
And I knew that stuff stored on Google docs was on their storage. But even stuff in my FGmail folders is
stored there too, which you mean it is???
Of ccours, what an idiot I am, how could I get at the emails when sitting at another PC somewhere????
@leejcarol: I doubt that is why your computer runs slow and freezes; your emails are probably not stored on your computer but in a Yahoo or Google server somewhere, and if they are on your computer (as happens in some Linux systems) then they are just sitting on the hard drive, they are not actively consuming computer resources.
If you use Yahoo or Google Mail, learn to create a folder and move those emails into that folder. I have 40 some odd folders in my email account, and 8 of them pertain to various independent legal actions (only two in progress).
So those emails can get out of your INBOX and organized into an easier, chronological record of the action in question.
If your computer is ridiculously slow and freezes, you probably have a virus, OR your computer is too old to handle the modern Javascript apps that are constantly running in every tab and window you open. Find the option in your web browser to turn off Javascript, and only turn it back on when that is the only way to see some content. Javascript is not necessary for the Turley Blog, unless you want to see the videos.
Tony, Thanks I will try that.
My computer is ridiculously slow and freezes. Why? Because I have had to save emails to and from lawyers about a case I have realizing I need to keep every scrap of email and contact. One lawyer had to be sued in small cliams court (I won – sort of, despite unacceptable work the judge let them keep 2/3 of a retainer and ruled in my favor because the lawyer, a faculty member teaching real estate law at Temple, didnt know that 2 of the counts he alleged in complaint were barred by the statute of limitations having run.)
Another told me the wrong statute.
The legal problems arose from buying a house where I was not told dangerous electrical and other problems so I have every email from the real estate agent and the inspector.
I learned the hard way you cannpt erase anything or delete. You never know when it will come back and bite you you-know-where.
That being said if she didnt want to teach legal analysis I wouldn;t want her on my faculty. Grammar you can learn from the English department.
“Oh wait, we are already doing politics that way…
Don’t worry, business will catch up.”
“Sign on the wall” quality speech. LOL.
@Idealist: And you know that I am just ribbing you in good humor.
That is fine. I think we are still in transition to “everything,” some people still think of recordings as for their personal use or for a select few; as Nixon did when recording in the Oval Office. However, lawsuits like this discourage that kind of practice. The same thing goes for email, memos and telephone calls; it is a mistake to say in either one anything that can bite you; and the seizure of email records and interoffice memos adds to the alarm.
If we continue this trend, we will all be doing business and politics like the Mafia, verbally in coded innuendo in homes and restaurants, passing notes to be read, memorized and returned on the spot, with nothing explicit or definitive ever offered or accepted.
Oh wait, we are already doing politics that way… 🙂
Don’t worry, business will catch up.
TonyC,
That is what we have archives for. It did not start with Nixon tapes and will not stop today. Every EFFing thing is routinely archived, even the instant replays in football.
And you know that I am just ribbing you in good humor. LOL.
@Malisha: It may not have been as bad as you think; it may have been digitally recorded, with her permission, so other professors could review her interview in casting their vote or debating the choices in committee. Then just routinely deleted once a candidate was chosen and made an offer that was accepted. Being sued for discrimination like this would be an unusual and unexpected event, if the “tape” was actually a digital file that was deleted, it may well have been a matter of routine maintenance or cleanup after somebody considered a job (hiring a new professor) to be finished. The lawsuit, I presume, arrived a fairly long time after that.
Are interviews ordinarily taped? If so, what I don’t like about this case is the fact that the tape was erased. I never like it when tapes are erased. DO NOT LIKE IT.
Difficult to evaluate the claims. Were her pubs in peer reviewed journals or vanity ones? Has she ever worked outside the wingnut welfare bubble (which includes soft money operations at George Mason). What rank was involved?
The big losers are the students, they only get fed one perspective and the school hired a less qualified person
The university claims she blew her interview then that they erased the tape. Sounds like destruction of evidence.
On another note this happens more frequently than many imagine. It has in some incidences gone down to students having their grades affected by political issues, or to a lesser extent having curricula based on politics by the professors.
I guess a couple ways a student can get by the occasional bias is to just let the professor flap their jaws and pretend to agree and take whatever pet projects they make the student perform. Or, to speak out and suffer the inevitable sanction. I tend to do the later, my wife the former.
“I’m shocked to learn there is gambling going on in this establishment.” Captain Renault.
I’m shocked that a conservative woman would be blackballed in a liberal bastion. I’m willing to bet it’s almost all male also.
Sounds to me like her attempt to give affirmative action to Right Wing Conservatives, given her mention that only one Republican was a faculty member.
TonyC,
They are graded not only on how many papers they write, conferences they address, but also by how many papers which reference their work as sources.
Assume I got it now.
Not to forget all the other stuff like letters of thanks, letters of commendation, letters from your mother, ……etc.
Lee Smolin’s “The Trouble with Physics” deals also with the academic world and the intrigues which impede progress.
@Idealist: Most professors (in all fields) try to teach a class in their particular area of research; for many those “hobby” courses are their primary source of graduate students. Graduate students are very important in the academic scheme because professors need students that can pursue those very same lines of inquiry and get papers written, co-authored with the professor, and papers are a currency in the academic world. They help get grants, contracts, support, tenure and merit raises; the number and quality of papers is a major consideration in interviews for higher jobs or moving to another university.
I do not know how law universities work specifically, but in the disciplines with which I am familiar most professors would be VERY upset (and might try to move elsewhere) if they did not get to teach their pet topics and got relegated to the “core” curriculum alone; teaching their pet topic isn’t just for the fun of it, it is a key component in their career path.
Is anyone surprised that she’s against legal analysis? Critical thinking isn’t something the current crop of “conservative ” educators want taught. The dumber the electorate the better for politicians who have no discernible philosophy except that the rich should have everything,the proles should bow to the rich,and no one needs to understand anything else.
Phyaics professors do, and legal reasoning is not in their training.
The system, is that not what the child learns first?
@Turley: The problem with these challenges is that hiring an academic is not easily broken down to easily identifiable criteria.
Very true, and therein lies the rub, that bias can be disguised as any number of things. Because of that, compelling clues that bias DOES exist, like the memo above, must carry more weight.
If you want to exclude law professors that do not believe the same as you do (conservative, liberal, libertarian) on justifiable grounds, change your interview process, and ask them to justify or refute various positions given by the Supreme Court. Like a test, or the oral examination part of a dissertation defense in which any questions about the field of study can be asked and the candidate is obligated to answer. Then take some notes for the file and reject the candidates on the basis of too frequent faulty legal reasoning and the impact that might have on your precious students.
I would think law professors would know how to game this system.
Bah humbug…..
Definitely not my area, but it gives an opportunity to raise some questions of interest to me.
—-“held that Ms. Wagner had sufficient evidence to infer that the decisions not to hire her had been motivated by illegal viewpoint bias.”
In what circumstances does this bias become illegal?
Secondly, given my bias that law and the legal system is one of general conservatism, it was a surprise to find “hobby” subject of modern progressive character are offered and favored. What is the general makeup of the legal system in America and particularly the law schools.
And does the political makeup have any effect other than the hiring decisions? To clarify: journalists have traditionally and are still said to be favoring the left in their own opinions. But since the media is well controlled, even leftleaning journalists must bow to the one who butters their bread.
The finer points I leave to the qualified.