Court Ruling on Unemployment Benefits Favors Professors

In a recent commentary piece in The Chronicle, Nicholas M. Manicone, associate counsel at the American Association of University Professors, looks at an Indiana Supreme Court ruling on the question of whether professors whose contracts expire are eligible for unemployment benefits.

Manicone describes the case, Indiana State v. LaFief, as follows:

Indiana State University appointed William LaFief as an assistant professor of marketing for the 2004-5 calendar year. After reappointing him for 2005-6, the university subsequently advised LaFief that his contract would not be renewed again. The university offered no reason for its decision. LaFief subsequently filed for unemployment benefits, and the university challenged his eligibility, arguing that LaFief had agreed to a fixed term of employment and therefore was not “involuntarily unemployed” when his contract expired.

According to Indiana law, people must have paid into the system, be seeking a new job, and be “‘involuntarily unemployed’ through no fault of their own” to qualify for benefits, Manicone explains. While the university granted that LaFief met the first two conditions, it maintained that his unemployment was his own fault. LaFief argued that his departure could in no way be considered voluntary since the “university unilaterally chose not to renew his contract, despite his desire” to stay, Manicone writes.

He notes that the decision, which came down in June in favor of LaFief, was the latest in a series of court rulings that sided with professors — the most recent being a Supreme Court of Ohio decision in Lorain County Auditor v. Ohio Unemployment Compensation Review Commission, which said that “an employee who accepts employment and agrees to a termination date does not waive her right to unemployment benefits.” Clearly, the current legal trend “now seems to be unmistakably in the direction of granting benefits to faculty members and others whose employment contracts are nonrenewed through no fault of their own,” Manicone adds.

He wonders if a ruling on whether professors are eligible for benefits over summer break, “when re-employment in the fall is expected but not guaranteed” might be next.

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