Multimillion-Dollar Lawsuit Hits Le Moyne College

Today, former graduate student Scott McConnell filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, because it expelled him from its education master’s program based on his personal beliefs.

In January 2005, administrators summarily dismissed McConnell because he had expressed views that opposed "multicultural education” and had stated in an academic assignment that "corporal punishment has a place in the classroom.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) took up McConnell’s case, reminding Le Moyne, a Jesuit college, that its actions breached its own promises to respect students’ academic freedom and due process. When Le Moyne refused to address these concerns, FIRE publicly exposed Le Moyne’s repressive actions.

McConnell is represented in the suit by New York civil rights attorney Samuel A. Abady and by the Center for Individual Rights in Washington, D.C.

"Le Moyne has had multiple opportunities to right this wrong,” remarked David French, president of FIRE. "If Le Moyne College had followed its own policies and procedures regarding freedom of expression and due process, it would not only have done the right thing but also would have saved itself a lot of time, money, and embarrassment.”

During the Fall 2004 semester, Scott McConnell submitted a paper advocating strong discipline in the classroom for a course taught by Professor Mark J. Trabucco.

Trabucco gave the paper an "A-” and wrote a cryptic note to McConnell that his ideas were "interesting” and that he had shared the paper with Cathy Leogrande, the graduate education department chair.

Then, without any warning, Leogrande expelled McConnell from the graduate education program in a January 13, 2005, letter, in which Leogrande stated that she had "grave concerns” about a "mismatch” between McConnell’s "personal beliefs” and "the Le Moyne College program goals.” At the time of his expulsion, McConnell had earned a 3.78 grade-point average for the fall semester and an "excellent” evaluation for his work in a Syracuse elementary school classroom.

FIRE wrote Le Moyne’s president, Rev. Charles Beirne, on February 3, 2005, explaining that the actions taken against McConnell undermined the college’s own standards, and that such arbitrary censorship would chill free speech on campus. Le Moyne’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, John Smarrelli, Jr., responded to FIRE, stating that it was "inappropriate” to engage in a public debate with FIRE about Le Moyne’s actions.

FIRE then took the case public, and during the ensuing mass media coverage of McConnell’s battle with Le Moyne, McConnell wrote the college in March to appeal its decision. Smarrelli’s March 30 response to McConnell claimed that because McConnell had only been "conditionally accepted” into its program, the college would not grant him an opportunity to appeal, and that Leogrande’s January dismissal letter "constituted the College’s final action” on McConnell’s "admission application.”

Despite Le Moyne’s stated commitments to academic freedom, Smarrelli also indicated that "Dr. Leogrande’s decision took into account the fact that you appear to reject the values of the program.”

McConnell’s lawsuit, filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in the County of Onondaga, asks for McConnell’s reinstatement to Le Moyne’s graduate education program and for millions of dollars in damages for violations of civil rights laws and New York state law.

"As we said before, the fight for the academic freedom of Scott McConnell and for all Le Moyne students will not end just because administrators don’t feel like addressing the issue,” commented Greg Lukianoff, FIRE’s director of legal and public advocacy. "FIRE, along with Scott McConnell and his attorneys, will pursue this issue in the court of public opinion, and now in the courts of law, until Le Moyne College honors its own commitments and this injustice is corrected.”

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at colleges and universities.

I noticed that on reader suggested that the student look to Robert Welch University, www.robertwelchuniversity.org
I think this is a great suggestion. There was an article out recently in the Washington post that clearly detailed the libearl bias in academia. Follow up discussions pointed to the similarities to the liberal bias in media. See the excerpt below: (This was part of the discussion for conservative.net

washingtonpost.com
College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, Study Finds

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 29, 2005; Page C01

College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.

By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans. [ed: the survey dealt with full-time professors, not adjuncts or TAs who do much of the actual teaching. RJ]

The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.

"What's most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field," said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study. "There was no field we studied in which there were more conservatives than liberals or more Republicans than Democrats. It's a very homogenous environment, not just in the places you'd expect to be dominated by liberals."

Religious services take a back seat for many faculty members, with 51 percent saying they rarely or never attend church or synagogue and 31 percent calling themselves regular churchgoers. On the gender front, 72 percent of the full-time faculty are male and 28 percent female.

The findings, by Lichter and fellow political science professors Stanley Rothman of Smith College and Neil Nevitte of the University of Toronto, are based on a survey of 1,643 full-time faculty at 183 four-year schools. The researchers relied on 1999 data from the North American Academic Study Survey, the most recent comprehensive data available.

The study appears in the March issue of the Forum, an online political science journal. It was funded by the Randolph Foundation, a right-leaning group that has given grants to such conservative organizations as the Independent Women's Forum and Americans for Tax Reform.

Rothman sees the findings as evidence of "possible discrimination" against conservatives in hiring and promotion. Even after factoring in levels of achievement, as measured by published work and organization memberships, "the most likely conclusion" is that "being conservative counts against you," he said. "It doesn't surprise me, because I've observed it happening." The study, however, describes this finding as "preliminary."

When asked about the findings, Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom and tenure for the American Association of University Professors, said, "The question is how this translates into what happens within the academic community on such issues as curriculum, admission of students, evaluation of students, evaluation of faculty for salary and promotion." Knight said he isn't aware of "any good evidence" that personal views are having an impact on campus policies.

"It's hard to see that these liberal views cut very deeply into the education of students. In fact, a number of studies show the core values that students bring into the university are not very much altered by being in college."

Rothman, Lichter and Nevitte find a leftward shift on campus over the past two decades. In the last major survey of college faculty, by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1984, 39 percent identified themselves as liberal.

In contrast with the finding that nearly three-quarters of college faculty are liberal, a Harris Poll of the general public last year found that 33 percent describe themselves as conservative and 18 percent as liberal.

The liberal label that a majority of the faculty members attached to themselves is reflected on a variety of issues. The professors and instructors surveyed are, strongly or somewhat, in favor of abortion rights (84 percent); believe homosexuality is acceptable (67 percent); and want more environmental protection "even if it raises prices or costs jobs" (88 percent). What's more, the study found, 65 percent want the government to ensure full employment, a stance to the left of the Democratic Party.

Recent campus controversies have reinforced the left-wing faculty image. The University of Colorado is reviewing its tenure system after one professor, Ward Churchill, created an uproar by likening World Trade Center victims to Nazis. Harvard's faculty of arts and sciences voted no confidence in the university's president, Lawrence Summers, after he privately wondered whether women had the same natural ability as men in science and math.

The study did not attempt to examine whether the political views of faculty members affect the content of their courses.

The researchers say that liberals, men and non-regular churchgoers are more likely to be teaching at top schools, while conservatives, women and more religious faculty are more likely to be relegated to lower-tier colleges and universities.

Top-tier schools, roughly a third of the total, are defined as highly ranked liberal arts colleges and research universities that grant PhDs.

The most liberal faculties are those devoted to the humanities (81 percent) and social sciences (75 percent), according to the study. But liberals outnumbered conservatives even among engineering faculty (51 percent to 19
percent) and business faculty (49 percent to 39 percent).

The most left-leaning departments are English literature, philosophy, political science and religious studies, where at least 80 percent of the faculty say they are liberal and no more than 5 percent call themselves conservative, the study says.

"In general," says Lichter, who also heads the nonprofit Center for Media and Public Affairs, "even broad-minded people gravitate toward other people like themselves. That's why you need diversity, not just of race and gender but also, maybe especially, of ideas and perspective."

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