A professor at the U.S. Naval Academy has filed a federal whistle-blower complaint alleging that the institution improperly denied him a deserved pay increase for publicly accusing it of illegally operating a separate admissions track for minority students.
Bruce E. Fleming, a professor of English and civilian employee of the Naval Academy, said he filed a formal complaint last month with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower accusations by federal employees. He alleged in the complaint that top academy officials denied him a merit pay raise to which he was entitled, in retaliation for his public assertions that the institution’s race-conscious admissions policies are so heavy-handed they probably violate federal civil-rights laws.
Although Mr. Fleming has been critical of the academy and its affirmative-action policies for several years, he says its administration became especially angry with him after he published a June 14 column in an Annapolis newspaper, The Capital. In it, he argued that the academy enrolls minority students through a separate, less-demanding admissions process and that as a result, many struggle there.
Academy officials denied his criticisms, but his column, “The Cost of a Diverse Naval Academy,” was widely picked up by military blogs, and the ensuing controversy over it was covered by newspapers such as The Washington Post.
An Expected Raise Denied
Mr. Fleming said his whistle-blower complaint, filed online, names the academy’s academic dean and provost, Andrew T. Phillips, whom he accuses of ignoring the recommendations of the English department’s chairwoman and otherwise taking extraordinary steps to deny him a raise. His complaint also names the academy’s superintendent, Vice Admiral Jeffrey L. Fowler, based on Mr. Fleming’s belief that Mr. Phillips, who was new in the job, would not have acted on his own to take the steps necessary to keep him from getting a pay increase.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Fleming said the administration “is clearly trying to scare the faculty into acquiescence—trying to control the spin on what comes out of here—by punishing people who speak out. This violates the most fundamental principles of academic freedom.”
A spokesman for the Naval Academy, Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, on Wednesday issued a statement that said the academy “will cooperate fully in any review of this matter” but has a longstanding policy of refraining “from any public comments regarding ongoing administrative or personnel matters.”
Anne Glass, a spokeswoman for the Office of Special Counsel, said her agency does not discuss pending investigations and will not confirm or deny whether investigations are under way.
Mr. Fleming also has sent the president of the Naval Academy’s Faculty Senate, Anne Marie Drew, and the American Association of University Professors separate letters asking them to investigate his pay-raise denial.
Ms. Drew said Wednesday that she has appointed a committee of senior, civilian faculty members to look into the concerns that Mr. Fleming raised. She declined to provide additional comment on his letter.
Concerns Over Appeals Process
B. Robert Kreiser, an AAUP associate secretary who handles matters related to academic freedom, said his organization is looking into Mr. Fleming’s complaint because it is concerned that the academy did not have in place what it regards as an appropriate mechanism for Mr. Fleming or other faculty members to appeal decisions on pay. The Naval Academy’s policy establishing a system for civilian employees to file grievances calls for those not covered by collective-bargaining units to file them with their supervisors or managers or officials in the academy’s human-resources department, and specifically excludes merit-pay decisions from its definition of what employment matters it covers.
“We are not in a position to make a judgment on the merits of his claim,” said Mr. Kreiser of the AAUP. “But it is our position that a faculty member who makes such a claim ought to be able to have such a claim reviewed by a faculty body.”
In his letter to the AAUP, Mr. Fleming called the way the academy handled the question of whether to give him a merit raise this year “an egregious violation of all precedent.”
The college’s policies call for academic departments to give civilian faculty members scores based on their performance, rank them based on their scores, and then, based on their scores and rankings, recommend giving them either an increase of one or two steps on the academy’s pay ladder, or no increase at all.
Based on the recommendations of a committee of English Department faculty members, the chairwoman of that department, Allyson A. Booth, gave Mr. Fleming a good review and recommended him for a two-step increase. Instead, Mr. Fleming’s letter to the AAUP says, Mr. Phillips, the academic dean, treated him as if he had received a bad evaluation from his department and gave him no pay increase at all.
When interviewed on Wednesday, Mr. Fleming, who has written essays critical of the Naval Academy and about his own field for The Chronicle Review, said he is deeply committed to his institution but believes “taxpayers have a right to know how we operate.”
