Task force to study
faculty grievance, disciplinary procedures
BY JAMES ROBINSON
Citing faculty grievance
and discipline procedures that have become increasingly
time consuming and expensive, President Gerhard Casper
has announced the formation of a top-level task force
charged with making specific recommendations to
streamline the system.
Casper made the
announcement during his Oct. 29 State of the University
address before faculty, staff and students at Kresge
Auditorium. He used the address to decry the increase in
litigiousness at Stanford that reflects a trend in
society as a whole.
From 1990 to 1995, the
provost's office received two to three faculty grievances
a year, Casper said. But in the last academic year that
number grew to 10.
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"While some might
view this as a small number, it nevertheless provides
reason to worry," he said.
Dealing with the
grievances and discipline cases, especially under current
procedures, takes time and money. Casper noted that a
recent study showed that legal defense costs for private
colleges and universities nationwide had risen 250
percent in only five years, from an average of $70,000
per claim in 1992 to $175,000 last year.
"If depositions in a
single case can consume 10 percent of a university
president's official working hours during an entire
quarter and the president I'm referring to is myself
and if dedicated university deans, faculty and staff
must accept being personally attacked by a plaintiff's
lawyer for days on end, the effect on the individuals and
the institution is debilitating, indeed," Casper
said.
While acknowledging there
was little Stanford could do about the increasingly
"excessive and overreaching legal system,"
Casper, himself a lawyer, said university procedures add
to the problem by being too cumbersome and leaving
grievants, respondents and the university in limbo for
too long. "My point does not pertain to rights, or
asserting rights, but to the manner in which we
adjudicate them within the university," he said.
Under current procedures,
grievances are initially reviewed by the dean, and a
faculty or senior staff member is often asked to
undertake an independent fact-finding review. That review
is followed by the preparation of a report, which can
take another 60 days. The report then goes to the dean
for a decision. If the dean denies the grievance, there
are additional levels of appeal, including the provost
and in many instances the president.
"At each of these
stages, an independent reviewer again might be appointed,
and often might start an investigation all over
again," Casper said.
"Our estimate is that
the handling of a grievance that is complex and appealed
through the various levels will take from 350 to more
than 500 hours of faculty and staff time. Further, a
lawsuit often is brought in such cases, adding from 50 to
several hundred hours of attorney time per side and, in
one or two of the more extreme cases, actually as much as
9,000 hours. Attorneys are not free, and I would remind
you that every dollar spent defending the university
against lawsuits is taken away from much more productive
academic uses," he added.
Casper suggested that
"a greatly simplified university process would
continue to assure the full protection of academic
freedom and due process, without the current substantial
costs to the faculty members who are at the center of the
decision-making process."
Like faculty grievances,
faculty discipline cases also consume a great deal of
time, Casper said. Under current procedures, after an
investigation is launched a dean brings to the president
allegations of wrongdoing. It is the president who
charges a faculty member. The president and the faculty
member charged may then engage in a type of plea
bargaining. If no agreement is reached, the case goes to
the Advisory Board and then back to the president.
"I cannot even begin
to suggest to you how time consuming all of this
is," Casper said.
"Starting, properly,
with a presumption of innocence, the president is in a
difficult position: He or she I am using this form of
reference to make clear that I am not concerned about my
personal lot but about the institution must develop an
independent sense of what happened at the school level
and is, of course, given conflicting versions. If the
president were a judge, this kind of adjudication would
be his or her job. The president's job, however, is to
lead a rather complex educational institution with, this
year, an annual budget of $2.25 billion (including
hospitals and clinics). If the president carves out the
time needed to perform the judicial assignment
conscientiously, it is at great expense to nearly every
other duty to the university, and its faculty, students
and staff. Conversely, if the president does not set
almost everything else aside, charges of foot-dragging
can come from accuser and accused alike."
Casper said perhaps the
power to charge faculty under the disciplinary rules
should be transferred to deans of the various schools and
new approaches to the fact-finding process should be
considered.
Casper used his address to
name the members of the task force: Provost Condoleezza
Rice; the current chair of the Advisory Board, Professor
Robert Simoni of biological sciences; the three most
recent Advisory Board chairs, Professors James Sheehan of
history, Bradley Efron of statistics and Frances Conley
of neurosurgery; and Professor Michael Bratman of
philosophy as a faculty member at large. Casper also will
sit on the panel.
Any proposed changes to
current rules would require approval of the Faculty
Senate and the Board of Trustees.
Casper's appointment of a
task force comes on the heels of the drawn-out discipline
case against Dr. Adolph Pfefferbaum, who was charged with
neglect of duty after leaving a post at the Palo Alto
Veterans Administration Medical Center. On the
recommendation of the Advisory Board, Casper suspended
Pfefferbaum for three years and fined him $20,000.
Pfefferbaum has sued in an attempt to overturn the
decision. SR
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