Posted on 02/06/2004 9:45:47 PM PST by lewislynn
UTA didn't check ex-prof's references
Former city attorney's classroom demeanor upset, scared students
09:36 PM CST on Friday, February 6, 2004
Officials at the University of Texas at Arlington said they made no reference checks before hiring a communication law professor who wept during his first lecture and talked about his sexuality and the devil.
Had the university made one phone call to lawyer Ronnie Robert Molina's previous employer – the Dallas city attorney's office – officials would have found out that he was fired from his job as prosecutor in municipal court for a history of outbursts and inappropriate behavior.
Dana Dunn, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, said this week that UTA made a mistake in hiring Mr. Molina and that reference checks should have been completed.
"It troubles me that we did not do this," she said. "This is not our standard practice."
Ms. Dunn said that at UTA, it is routine to contact an applicant's recent employers. She said in Mr. Molina's case, the department was desperate to fill a position and didn't have time to complete the checks. His contract, which he never signed, was rescinded.
"This is not to excuse it," she said. "It was a disturbing day, but it was responded to immediately."
In an interview Friday, Mr. Molina, 34, said he has not spoken to university officials since Jan. 20 and did not believe he had been fired.
"It was an odd day," he said. "I explained to ... [the students] I was not going to hide myself as a teacher. ... I did it as an exercise in self-disclosure."
Rusty Ward, UTA's interim vice president for business affairs and the school's spokesman, said there is no written policy about what a UTA supervisor should do when hiring an employee.
"I think there's some discretion involved in anybody you hire. If you know them very well, and they're well known amongst the UTA community here, I think that might be a little different situation," Mr. Ward said. "Ordinarily, if you're going to do your due diligence, you're going to call [a former employer] and make sure you have some good solid history on these people you hire."
Mr. Ward also said the school's faculty shortage often poses a problem because student demand for a class may dictate that additional classes be added so quickly that employment checks may not be as thorough.
Students in Mr. Molina's 30-member communication law class said he showed up a half-hour late Jan. 20, the first day of class. He wrote his name and "666" on the blackboard, then began calling his former employers "the devil" and disclosing intimate details about his recent romantic break-up. Students said he cried for part of the hourlong class.
"I was pretty scared," said Jennifer Horkey, a senior communication student. "He made us feel very uncomfortable and nervous. We didn't know what to expect."
After class, students went to the dean and complained, prompting the university to rescind Mr. Molina's offer.
"We took prompt action because we take what goes on in the classroom seriously," Ms. Dunn said. "It was a matter of academic integrity in terms of course content."
Mr. Molina said Friday that he told students they could stop him if they felt uncomfortable and that they appeared to be listening and interested. After class, he said, several students stuck around to talk to him.
"No one was complaining," he said. "I'm not an offensive person. I was just taking a humanistic Christian approach to the class."
Mr. Molina graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 2000 and passed the bar exam in 2002. An alumnus of UTA, Mr. Molina worked as an attorney at Vial, Hamilton, Koch & Knox LLP in Dallas before being hired as an assistant city attorney.
Mr. Molina was fired from his city post in August. His termination letter cited the reasons for his dismissal as inappropriate behavior in courtrooms and toward his supervisors, and it ordered him to leave the building "without incident."
Lawyer Tim Gonzalez, who serves as a part-time judge in Dallas Municipal Court, recalled an incident in which Mr. Molina exhibited strange behavior during a trial last year.
He said Mr. Molina asked for a continuance of the case in the middle of a trial – something lawyers can't do – and made several illogical objections when the other side presented its case.
When Mr. Molina failed to prove his case against the defendant, the case was dismissed. That angered the city prosecutor, who "blew up" at opposing counsel and the judge.
"I kind of ignored him," Mr. Gonzalez said. "He didn't know how to try a case."
City Attorney Madeleine Johnson declined to comment about Mr. Molina, saying the documents detailing his work for the city speak for themselves.
Mr. Ward said he's trying to determine how Mr. Molina was hired.
"We're still not sure what the exact chain of events were that led to this guy being hired," he said. "We're still looking into that. I'd still like to know."
Most universities have policies on hiring practices, said Bill Perry, vice provost at Texas A&M University. At A&M, he said, all job candidates go through lengthy reference checks and have their résumés checked for accuracy.
"It is standard practice to talk to someone [about the candidate] and to verify their degree," he said. "We do this for every professor no matter what. It's a university policy."
The University of Texas System has no set policy on verifying a job candidate's credentials, said Monty Jones, spokesman for the chancellor's office.
Mr. Jones said criminal background checks must be done on potential employees in security-sensitive fields, such as pharmaceuticals and controlled substances. But campuses can determine their own standards for hiring all other candidates.
"Each campus deals with that on its own," Mr. Jones said.
Josh Warren, UTA's student body president, said university officials responded promptly and in the right manner.
"We have faculty at every level making interesting statements and they don't get fired," he said. "... [Mr. Molina] was really out there. Anytime someone goes into a job and acts like this on their first day, I can't see any response but to fire them."
E-mail eramshaw@dallasnews.com and tlangford@dallasnews.com
Yea but he's all Texas.
I seems that several of the students couln't tell the difference between normal instruction and a raving nutjob.
The lines are blurred. A lot of the raving nutjobs have tenure.
Let me suggest that the "chain of events" went a little something like this:
Law school dean: Got an opening on the faculty here. Any applicants from "diverse" candidates?
Assistant: Here's a guy with a Hispanic surname and a law-degree from a third-tier school.
Law school dean: Hire him. We'll pay him anything he wants. Tell him his first class starts Tuesday.
Let me suggest that the "chain of events" went a little something like this:
Law school dean: Got an opening on the faculty here. Any applications from "diverse" candidates?
Assistant: Here's a guy with a Hispanic surname and a law-degree from a third-tier school.
Law school dean: Hire him. We'll pay him anything he wants. Tell him his first class starts Tuesday.
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