ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PRIVILEGE AND TENURE

To: The Representative Assembly of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate

The workload being unusually light during most of the 2002-2003 academic year, the Investigative Subcommittee of the Committee on Privilege and Tenure met only twice, thus far, although considerable business was conducted by e-mail. The Subcommittee considered four grievances as follows:

Case #1: A faculty member alleged that the chair had improperly and unjustly

relieved the faculty member of teaching responsibilities. We found that

the chair had acted in accordance with established procedures and within

the chair’s authority.

Case #2: A faculty member alleged that a promotion was denied unfairly. We

informed the faculty member that we could not act on the matter since our bylaws prohibit consideration if more than three years have passed since a

grievant knew or should have known about the perceived injustice.

Case #3: A faculty member alleged that a recruitment for a tenure-track

appointment was carried out in an improper and biased manner, and that

the faculty member was not given equitable consideration for the position

because of prejudice against a particular class of applicants. We found

that a prima facie case, as defined by our bylaws, had been established—

that is, if the allegation proved true, the grievant would have suffered

harm. We are now investigating.

Case #4: A faculty member alleged that an administrative officer failed to act on a

complaint in a timely manner, and that the failure stemmed from malicious

intent. We found that a prima facie case, as described above, had been

established. We are now investigating.

Additionally, (1) the Investigative Subcommittee has established a web page with its policies and procedures and appropriate links to the bylaws, the faculty code of conduct, etc., (2) the Investigative Subcommittee responded to requests for comments regarding various issues, such as the UC Gender Equity Report and amendments to UCP&T bylaws, (3) a representative from the Investigative Subcommittee attended the spring meeting of the UCP&T, (4) the Investigative Subcommittee began work on a ‘confidentiality statement’ to be added to our web page, and (5) the Chair of the Investigative Subcommittee conferred privately with several potential grievants, faculty advisors and administrators.

Finally, the Hearings Subcommittee has scheduled a four day hearing late in May to

consider multiple grievances filed by members of a department and referred

to the Hearings Subcommittee by the Investigative Subcommittee.  On completion of the hearing, the Hearings Subcommittee will forward its recommendations to the Chancellor.

Respectfully submitted,

Investigative Subcommittee: Holly Doremus, Penelope Knapp, Norman Matloff, Henry Segall and Arnold Sillman, Chair.

Hearings Subcommittee: Colin Carter, Debbie Elliott-Fisk, Thomas Farver, Wendy Ho, Hanne Jensen, Thomas Joo, Denise Krol, Kari Lokke, David Shelton, and Diane Wolf, Robert Hillman (Chair, W,S) and Patsy Owens (Chair, F).