What’s New
For more than two years, Priyanga Amarasekare’s access to the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles has been severely restricted. She was suspended without pay in July 2022 and was placed on involuntary leave with a pay cut a year later.
Her disciplinary case, which revolves around findings that she violated the Faculty Code of Conduct, remains in limbo. But her lawyer says the drawn-out punishment has cost her a federal grant and the opportunity to work with students on important climate-change research. Now, she’s suing the university.
The Details
Amarasekare, an award-winning scientist who’s been a polarizing figure within UCLA’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology, filed a lawsuit this month against the university, three administrators, and the UC system’s Board of Regents. She says she’s been subjected to discrimination, a hostile work environment, and retaliation for complaining about bias in her department and at the university.
“Most recently, on or around September 30, 2024, Amarasekare’s federal grant was effectively terminated. This was a direct result of defendants’ discriminatory, harassing and retaliatory conduct towards Amarasekare,” the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, states.
One of Amarasekare’s lawyers, Mahru Madjidi, said in an interview that her client “loves to teach. She loves being around the students, and it’s been very painful for her not being able to go to the campus, except for her lab.”
“It’s a battle she’s been fighting for a long time,” Madjidi said. “It seems they’re pushing her to the point where they hope she’ll eventually just leave. They’ve pretty much stripped her of everything.” Madjidi said Amarasekare isn’t talking to reporters about the case while the lawsuit is pending.
Michael S. Levine, UCLA’s vice chancellor for academic affairs and personnel, wrote in June 2023 that allowing Amarasekare to return to her regular duties could pose “a strong risk” of “immediate and serious harm” to the functioning of her department. Her lawsuit names Levine and two of her faculty colleagues: the department chair, Michael Alfaro, and a professor and former dean of life sciences, Victoria L. Sork.
The Backdrop
Amarasekare, a native of Sri Lanka who began work at UCLA in 2005, has racked up top awards in her field, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Robert H. MacArthur Award, one of the highest honors given by the Ecological Society of America. But she’s also attracted controversy for her harsh criticism of colleagues she says were winning promotions and leadership opportunities denied to her because of her ethnicity and gender. Some of those complaints were posted on a listserv set up in 2020 for her department.
In June, a faculty disciplinary committee held a hearing based on a probable-cause finding that Amarasekare had violated the Faculty Code of Conduct by sharing disciplinary records that were supposed to be kept confidential. She’d been found responsible for making unfounded public accusations against her colleagues and failing to cooperate with efforts to “correct her behavior.”
The faculty body was expected to make recommendations to the chancellor on whether she should face further sanctions. More than four months later, it’s unclear whether that ever happened. A university spokesman didn’t respond to emailed questions about the body’s findings. These days, Amarasekare is only allowed in her office and lab. She’s not permitted to teach or recruit students to work with her.
She was allowed some limited access to campus after her doctoral students complained that their research had nearly ground to a halt because they couldn’t communicate with her. They were working with her on National Science Foundation-funded research, some of which involved how rising temperatures affect the survival of insect species, and, more broadly, biodiversity.
Amarasekare does not post on the social-media platform X, but in June, an outside colleague posted on her behalf. “I was placed on involuntary leave immediately after my suspension ended, and UCLA has been using this leave as a pretext for destroying my NSF-funded research on climate change,” she wrote. “Without being able to hire a postdoc or recruit students, my research has come to a standstill.”
UCLA, in a prepared statement sent to The Chronicle, said it could not comment on the pending litigation. “UCLA does not condone discrimination, harassment, or retaliation of any kind,” the statement said. “We’re committed to maintaining a diverse, inclusive, and respectful learning and working environment for all members of our community.”
What to Watch For
The university isn’t saying whether it plans to take any further disciplinary action against Amarasekare, but without her federal grant or the ability to recruit students, she says her ability to work is extremely constrained.
Since the case began, the chancellor who was expected to decide her fate, Gene D. Block, has left, and there’s no indication that his interim or permanent replacements were eager to take up her case. It’s also unclear whether, by upping the stakes with her lawsuit, Amarasekare will hasten her departure from the university or whether her involuntary leave will extend indefinitely.
