Two tenured faculty members at the University of Missouri at Kansas City have agreed to resign to avoid disciplinary action, one year after the university paid $1.1-million to settle a lawsuit alleging rampant sexual harassment by those professors.
In July 2007, the University of Missouri reached a settlement with two female employees who claimed the university had been unresponsive to their complaints about two professors, C. Keith Haddock and Walker S. Carlos Poston II (The Chronicle, July 27, 2007). The lawsuit, filed in 2006, alleged that the two faculty members created a “sexually hostile work environment” in the health-research laboratory they jointly supervised by making sexual advances, cracking explicit jokes, and groping female colleagues.
At the time of the lawsuit, Mr. Haddock and Mr. Poston, both professors of psychology, were removed from the lab and reassigned to the medical school at the Kansas City campus. A court deposition indicated the two were among the university’s top grant winners.
On Monday the two men agreed to resign their tenured faculty positions, effective September 30, rather than face tenure-revocation or dismissal proceedings. Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Haddock and Mr. Poston will be permitted to complete their academic and research obligations and will receive salaries until August 31, 2009, the end of their contract year. The two men have agreed not to seek future employment with the university.
“This agreement provides the opportunities for all parties to move forward with the missions of educating students and advancing research without the distraction of a protracted proceeding before a faculty committee,” said Gail Hackett, the university’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, in a written statement.
Attempts to reach the lawyer for Mr. Haddock and Mr. Poston were unsuccessful.
The university’s statement on the agreement noted that Mr. Haddock and Mr. Poston have also received written notification of the results of the school’s separate investigation of complaints filed in 2005 by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who were a graduate student and a faculty member in the psychology department. The complaints included allegations that the two male professors had created a hostile work environment by making suggestive comments to female students and employees, subjecting co-workers to graphic discussion of their sexual preferences, putting employees in choke holds, and making lewd jokes involving hot dogs, bananas, and Atomic Fire Ball candies.
For that investigation, the university’s director of affirmative action, Grace Hernandez, interviewed 70 students, faculty members, and staff members, the statement said, but “because of significantly conflicting testimony among the witnesses, she felt the evidence was inconclusive as to whether or not there was a hostile work environment” in the lab.
Linda S. Garavalia, an associate professor of psychology at Missouri, and one of the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit, said the university’s actions speak louder than words.
“If they had gone through the process to revoke their tenure, it would have been a long and lengthy investigation, and it would have detracted from what we’re all supposed to be doing, which is teaching and helping students do research,” said Ms. Garavalia. “The university must have felt pretty strongly that their case was solid if the fellows would resign rather than go through that process. So I think that regardless of the statement that the investigation was inconclusive, obviously they found something that they felt like they had enough evidence to force their hand to get them to resign.”