A history professor at Hamline University in Minnesota has irritable bowel syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety

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Question:

A history professor at Hamline University in Minnesota has irritable bowel syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder and was unable, according to the professor's account, to conduct research in 2022, even though he taught courses in Spring 2022. In fall 2022, the professor went on medical leave. The professor was expected, based on his performance review of 2021, to send the draft of his book to Indiana University Press, which expressed high interest in publishing the book). He is now up for review in February 2023; the review evaluates research and teaching in the 2022 calendar year. The professor has been at Hamline University since 2017 and is expected to be up for tenure in October 2024. A tenure vote means that the professor will be required to demonstrate that he has achieved excellence in teaching and research. The professor is a well-liked teaching instructor but has fallen behind in his research. The professor has strong teaching reviews. The professor's research and methods are generally considered strong (based on past performance reviews), but his research is delayed. The professor has received two extension years to extend his tenure clock due to his medical conditions in 2020 and 2021. That means that originally, the professor was going to go up for tenure in the Fall of 2022, but he was now going to be up for tenure in the Fall of 2024. If a professor doesn't get tenure or doesn't have the possibility of getting tenure, the only option is to terminate the professor. The Disability Resource Center was informed that the professor had disabilities in 2020 and requested accommodations, including online teaching and more time to work on their research.

Accommodation Request

Accommodation Request: The professor has requested an accommodation to teach online to extend his tenure clock and to delay the review in February 2023 (i.e., a review of work conducted in 2022). The Disability Resource Center of the university recommends the professor teach online and provides support by allowing the professor to extend his tenure clock to 2025. The Disability Resource Center also asks for the review to be delayed by one year.

However, the Department of History Chair is frustrated with that request because the Chair tells the professor that he is not telling the truth. The professor decided not to share his conditions with the Chair, which is permitted by the rules and policies of the university.

The Disability Resource Center received clear information from the medical provider detailing the need for accommodations and certifying the existence of the professor's disabilities. While the access consultant at the Disability Resource Center has assessed the medical documentation and even spoken with the medical provider, the professor has not shared the information with the chair.

From the chair's perspective, the professor appears able-bodied.

Accommodation Costs & Termination

The school administration says it is too expensive and poses an undue hardship to have a professor have additional years to extend the tenure clock to work on research without evidence of stronger performance in research. The concern is that the professor could repeatedly request extensions without evidence of further research activity.

Since 2017, the professor has not published any articles or books, although he finished a full draft of a book that was well-reviewed in last year's review in 2021. Typically, a book is what makes or breaks a tenure application, and so the book is the most important piece of the tenure application. Furthermore, in 2021, the professor says that once the book is in external review, he will be able to publish journal articles. In the 2021 annual review, the professor was told that he needed to publish three articles in good journals and send the book out for external review.

This was what was agreed upon in the performance review that took place in 2021, in which the professor revealed the completion of the book draft and high interest from Indiana Press.

The professor -with support from the Disability Resource Center -states that he was not able to send the book out for external review in 2022 to Indiana Press due to his disabilities. The tenure committee of the Department of History determined that based on the professor's inability to send the book out for external review to Indiana Press, they would have to "early terminate" the professor. Early termination means that the professor will not be able to go up to the date of tenure consideration and will be terminated in the year of the review in 2023.

During Medical Leave & Detention.

While the professor was on medical leave, he was in another country, and during his time, he was unjustly detained.

The detainment took place in December, and the professor was held in harsh conditions, worsening his disabilities, particularly because he had little access to medications at the beginning of his detention.

During detention, the professor was detained in confined spaces, interrogated for 20 hours straight, sleep-deprived, handcuffed to a chair, questioned repeatedly by multiple interrogators, yelled at, deprived of medications, spent time in solitary confinement, and threatened to be imprisoned for many years (and even for life). According to the Convention on Torture, the professor was tortured.

No charges were ultimately applied to the professor, yet he was deported back to Minnesota from said country.

Upon return, the professor's medical provider informed the Disability Resource Center that he now had a fourth disability, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

Interactive Process Meeting of 2023.

In January 2023, because the professor was on leave, he asked if he could have his annual review delayed by one year due to illness. If granted, the annual review would not occur in February 2023 but in February 2024. The request was denied. The professor claims that his medical leave in Fall 2022 set him back greatly, and he is still suffering from his disabilities.

The Disability Resource Center recommended that the annual review be delayed because of the professor's challenges and because the professor "was detained and not in a good mental place to complete the annual review."

In the meeting, the Chair (administration) kept explaining that a review is required due to institutional policies and procedures and that the medical leave and other conditions that delayed him are not a basis for requesting that the annual review be delayed one year.

No lawyer was present in the interactive process meeting.

After the interactive process meeting, the Chair told the professor in writing that the accommodation was denied.

Faculty Meeting of February 2023.

Every year, the faculty meets to evaluate tenure-track faculty.

Because the review proceeded, the faculty had to evaluate the faculty member but could not evaluate the disabilities of the faculty member.

The professor submitted documents telling the faculty about his disabilities and the detention and informed the faculty that he did not send his book for external review due to his disabilities.

The faculty was forced to vote to determine if the professor should continue as an assistant professor (tenure-track faculty).

2/3rds of the faculty voted against continuing the professor's position. 1/3rd voted for the faculty to continue. There were 16 for termination, 5 against termination, and 3 abstentions.

Transcript of Faculty Meeting & Reaction.

The faculty vote transcript, which includes information about the faculty meeting prior to the vote, cited the fact that the professor did not send the book for external review.

In the transcript, the faculty discussed the professor's situation in detail. The faculty determined that merely asking for the book to be in external review is a minimal request and takes into account the medical challenges endured by the professor in 2022 because, as one faculty said, representing much of the faculty sentiment "Doesn't the professor have the book draft, disabilities don't impact the ability to send a draft to Indiana Press for external review. All you have to do is press "send" in Gmail!"

The professor expressed distress about the conclusion of the faculty vote to the Disability Resource Center. The Disability Resource Center was never involved in informing the faculty how to evaluate the professor's disabilities and what could have been expected in terms of research output from the professor.

As is typical in these scenarios, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and the university's Provost confirmed the termination. The professor was officially terminated on May 14, 2023.

Policies.

The school has a policy to provide accommodations. They have a policy called "Disability," which requires that professors and students be provided with reasonable accommodations according to "federal and state law."

A school policy also says that a professor was entitled to not being reviewed annually if the professor was on leave for six months. But the professor was on leave for three months during the Fall 2022 semester.

Annual Review Meeting.

In an annual review meeting with the Chair on March 4, 2023, the Chair of the Department of History met with the professor.

The professor expressed concern that he could not believe that he was being terminated by the faculty despite being on leave, having medical conditions, and being detained.

The Chair of the Department of History told the professor that she did not believe he had disabilities. She said that she couldn't see any disabilities. She said that while the detention was difficult, the detention was not the whole year. The words she used were as follows: "I know colleagues who have disabilities, and YOU are not one of them." "I feel that somehow you managed to get the Disability Resource Center to certify you have disabilities fraudulently."

The professor told the Chair that he was concerned that the Disability Resource Center recommended a delay in the review, which was not granted. The Chair responded that while the Disability Resource Center provides recommendations, it is not the final word. But the professor was confused, stating that "no one even knows the details of my conditions; how could administrators or faculty make conclusions without the facts."

The Chair explained that every faculty voted independently, and everyone was instructed not to consider health. Despite that, the Promotion and Tenure Committee of the Department of History said that they considered the professor's health by asking, at minimum, for the book to be in the external review, which the faculty considered a research activity that the professor could accomplish despite his disabilities.

Again, the professor said, "How could you know how my disabilities may or may not affect my ability to submit the book to external review? I was unable to edit and review the book before submitting it."

Annual Review Meeting.

In the annual review meeting, the Chair also expressed teaching concerns. The Chair did not question the fact that the professor had strong student reviews but went on to say that your research portfolio is severely lacking, and your teaching is also poor. The Chair cited the following things that the professor did in his teaching:

(1) The professor had made his courses pass-fall, such that if a student passes (60% or above), then the student ultimately gets an "A" grade.

(2) The professor would provide exercises where students self-assess themselves, often giving themselves full grades. If students gave themselves 100%, the professor graded them 100%.

The professor cited academic freedom, protected in the university's Tenure Code. The professor said only some of the assignments are selfassessed, and not all; something like 80% are assessed by the professor and 20% by the student. The professor also explained that he had pedagogical reasons grounded in educational scholarship for encouraging students to self-assess, citing that "in the real world, we have to learn to self-assess ourselves, and I want to teach my students to do that."

Later, in April 2023, the professor went to the Chair of the Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee, who was concerned with learning about criticisms about the professor's teaching, saying that academic freedom protects such exercises (even if such teaching exercises like self-assessments are rarely implemented by professors at Hamline). The Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee Chair said, "It is not the right of the administration to say these things."

In the annual review meeting, the professor learned that the professor's teaching was discussed negatively prior to the faculty vote in the faculty meeting in February 2023. The professor is concerned that may have tainted the vote.

Alternative Scenarios.

How would you decide if the teacher was not skilled or did not have a strong profile as a teacher?

Assume there was no interactive process meeting. What is the consequence?

Assume that the professor had two publications in medium-level journals before the review and a draft of the book that was not sent out for external review at Indiana University Press. Would that change your conclusion?