Tenured Professor Faces Dismissal at U. of California Board Meeting

January 16, 2012, 11:40 am

The University of California’s Board of Regents will take the unusual step this week of considering firing a tenured professor who has taught for nearly 30 years, the Los Angeles Times reports. The professor, 65-year-old Sarkis Joseph Khoury, is an expert on international finance on the Riverside campus. He and the university have been embroiled in litigation on and off for some 15 years over his use of sabbaticals. The university says he has taken advantage of the time off to take paying jobs at other universities. Mr. Khoury has denied the accusations, which were never proved in court, and says the university has pursued a witch hunt against him “for being outspoken” and because of his Lebanese background, his Republican politics, and his advocacy for hiring minority professors. The proposed dismissal went to the board after being endorsed by a faculty committee, the campus chancellor, and the system president.

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Prof_truthteller

Meanwhile, college presidents think nothing of serving on multiple corporate boards, even sitting on some of these boards with trustees from their OWN college, and collecting multiple millions of dollars. SEE this article:
http://chronicle.com/article/Conflicts-Abound-for-College/130340
dashwood

“…and his advocacy for hiring minority professors.”

Does the writer mean “and his opposition to hiring minority professors”? It is hard to believe that a professor who advocates hiring minority professors would be vulnerable to dismissal by the UC Board of Regents for that reason.
antiutopia

Seriously, the case sounds like someone’s looking for a reason to fire him.
_perplexed_

It may not be wise to consider only Mr. Khoury’s account of what has been happening…
Guest

It is in combination with being Lebanese and Republican, and also advocating for more minority hiring. Democrats/liberals who are white and in powerful positions hate being confronted with their own racial discrimination from fellow liberals, but when the criticism comes from Republicans (and an Arab American to boot), it becomes the cause for truly vicious blowback. The Republican person championing diversity against Democrat elitists is a quadruple threat and takes away the liberal Democrat’s raison d’être.
Guest

I went to the LA Times article and it seems the UC Regents won’t provide any details:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc-prof-20120116,0,5155277.story

I am confused by the whole thing. It sounds fishy though.
pianiste

Minor point: “…it seems the UC Regents won’t provide any details.” It’s more like they can’t provide details in personnel matters under consideration without violating privacy rules.

Major point: “I am confused by the whole thing.” But that certainly doesn’t prevent Professor Lopez from saying earlier, with great certainty, “…in combination with being Lebanese and Republican, and also advocating for more minority hiring [makes Professor Khoury vulnerable to dismissal]. Democrats/liberals who are white
and in powerful positions hate being confronted with their own racial discrimination from fellow liberals, but when the criticism comes from Republicans (and an Arab American to boot), it becomes the cause for truly vicious blowback.”

To paraphrase what we used to say back in high school, “Be sure brain is engaged before putting keyboard in gear.”
retired_president

Huh?? Could you perhaps write a piece that is intelligible?
archman

If a faculty committee endorsed the tenure dismissal, it does not bode well. I do agree that more information should be provided about this case.
soonerdgs

I find it interesting that no one has even bothered to attempt to discuss the policies regarding outside work and sabbaticals might be… and whether the professor might or might not have violated those rules. Clearly there must be something there if the Regents are using that angle to co snider this action.
manoflamancha

This is almost always the outcome when one speaks “truth to power”. This behavior by so-called “management” is intended to put a chill on free-speech. Moreover, it is quite effective, as all tyrannys are, not unlike the Gulag, One must ask: where is the AAUP? Outside work is commonplace for Presidents, Deans and Chancelors who serve on Boards, so why is it an issue for a Professor on Sabbatical? Many people teach a course while on leave to defray costs of travel, etc. Why is this practice suddenly an issue. Something is rotton in Denmark, I fear.
feudipandola

Pretty hard to believe anyone with tenure could be fired nowadays. Maybe there’s a Tiny Tim connection?
rsgassle

Sounds like you need to get to know more liberals.
akprof

??? I must be really naive!
old nassau’67

4 observations:

1. Sitting on boards is part of a
college administrator’s job description, as is a coach’s running
summer camps. For both administrator and coach (and any other
university employee who has outside income), the financial rules are
mutually determined.

2. A sabbatical is PAID time from from
teaching to do relevant research: “In many colleges, people
receive full pay for the time they take off, which may exceed or be
less than a year. Since the university supports this leave, a job is
not in danger when a sabbatical is taken. Instead the employer and
employee agree on its necessity. What a professor might do on a
sabbatical may depend on how the university interprets the leave.
Some see it as a break time where teachers refuel and avoid becoming
burned out in their profession. Others see this time as an
opportunity to learn more so they have more to offer the university
in which they work.” (from wisegeek.com) My point: exactly what
did Professor Khoury tell his university he was going to do during
his sabbatical? Did he say he was going to teach, for pay, at another
institution?

3. Does the University have any quality
control about Sabbaticals? Are Professors required to outline their
year’s agenda?

4. Can Professor Khoury cite any other
Lebanese Republican Minority advocates who are being persecuted? His
racial, or ethnic, card resembles that of researcher Dipak K. Das:
“And his (Das’) responses so far haven’t done much to bolster his
case—for instance, the
all-caps charge that an exhaustive, three-year investigation that
produced a 60,000-page report is simply an attempt to malign him
because he’s Indian.” (see “More News” above)
feudipandola

Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier are still tenured professors at Penn State. Hard to believe this guy did anything worse than what they did.
wassall

old nassau’67 – I hear you.
pianiste

Waydaminnit.

It’s one thing to be accused (I have been) of commenting previously under another pseudonym, but it’s quite another–isn’t it?-to change one’s pseudonym retroactively on comments already published, as seems to be the case here.

Not that it’s illegal, immoral or fattening, but Professor Robert Oscar Lopez, whom I believe I first encountered as “curlysue” or something similar, seems to have more identities than a boiler room full of computer hackers. Are we talking “identity crisis” with our favorite married, bisexual, politically conservative Christian father?

C’mon, Bobby (I’ve been asked by R.O.P. Lopez to call him that), the Internet’s complicated enough as it is.
charlie1112

A colleague of mine once compared tenure as being on the “public dole.” I am amazed that people defend tenure and sabbaticals as being a “right” or necessary to preserve “academic freedom.” As for “burnout,” how do faculty burn out when they teach 2 or 3 days per week, from late August to early May? Having worked in higher ed for 35 years, and interacting with hundreds upon hundreds of faculty members,one thing remains constant: the self-absorption and whining of “academics” who are out of touch with the real world. Let them lose their jobs and try to get a new one under today’s harsh economic landscape.