Washington State’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that Western Washington University was on sound legal footing in denying the public access to a professor’s disciplinary hearing to protect the confidentiality of students. The case involved a lawsuit filed against the university by Perry F. Mills, a veteran theater professor, following a closed disciplinary hearing to suspend him without pay for verbally abusive behavior in the workplace. A state appeals court ruled last year that the university had violated a state law requiring such hearings to be held in the open unless sealed through a court’s protective order. But the state’s Supreme Court held that public colleges are free under state law to set their own rules for disciplinary proceedings involving their employees, and that the state Constitution does not require that such quasi-judicial proceedings be held in the open.
RSS
Follow The Ticker through your favorite RSS reader.
One Response to Washington State Court Upholds Closed Disciplinary Hearings at Public Colleges
tappat - February 4, 2011 at 9:03 am
So now, in Washington, a professor can be persecuted (sic) for what she says as part of her professional activity as an intellectual and critic (see http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/programs/protectvoice/Legal/), and she can be persecuted (sic) in secret (see above). Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. And now for something entirely different.