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Torres Bill Report
By Charity Hirsch
State Senator Art Torres wrote a bill which
passed in
1994, requiring UC to report their expenses, on outside attorneys only, in
cases
involving discrimination in appointment or tenure.
This spring, after help from Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, Irvine City
Councilman
and WAGE member Larry Agran, and local Democratic Party activists, we
finally
received the reports on the 1997 and 1998 calendar years.
There are eleven tenure cases listed for 1997. Dr.
Marjorie
Mosiers case cost the University $269,133 for outside counsel that
year (see
Fall 1997 and Spring 1998 Newsletters).
Runner up was Dr. Francine Lozada Nur whose case cost $246,503.
Prof. Yolanda Broyles-Gonzales cost $54,383,
and Prof. Sue Carole DeVale $20,287.
In 1998 there were again eleven tenure cases, ten were the same people as
in 1997.
Mosier again led costing $198,448. In the original report which covered
the years
1/88 - 4/94 the costs of her case were unreported because the work was
done by
inside counsel. In 1994 UC spent $21,344, $80,919 in 1995, $81,248 in
1996. The
total spent so far on Mosier (not including settlement or in-house costs
or future
outside attorney costs), to keep this superior woman from remaining on the
UC
faculty, is $651,092.
Compare this with the case of Professor Jenny Harrison whose settlement
led to her
credentials for tenure being reviewed by an outside committee and who was
consequently given tenure. Harrisons case was covered in the original six
year report
with outside costs for her case of $157,799. And the University now has
the
additional benefit of an excellent woman faculty member!
Of course, real economy came with the cases (Fall
1997,
p.2 and Spring 1997 p.4)
where legal action was prevented by the University avoiding
discrimination in
promotion.
The 1997 and 1998 reports both include two appointment matters,
the cases
of Dr. Antoinette Gomes (Spring 1995 Newsletter)
and
Prof. Rudolfo Acuna (spring 1996 Sounds
Familiar). UC lost both these cases in court. Apparently both are
continuing to
cost money because they involve appeals. Costs for Acunas case were
$77,134 in
1997 and $21,778 in 1998. His name does not appear in the six year report
but in
1994 it surfaced with a cost of $1,250,744, $713,126 in 1995, and $350,472
in 1996.
That puts him at the top with $2,413,254 spent just to keep him off the
Santa Barbara
faculty, not including internal costs, or penalties and costs charged the
University by
the court.
Gomes case does not appear in the first report but cost $22,586 in 1994,
$229,848 in
1995 when UC appealed the decision against them, $123,799 in 1996, $58,114
in
1997 and $12,319 in 1998 for a grand total of $446,666, again without
including
other costs or penalties.
Bear in mind, these are not the high roller cases, the ones
involving sex (see
Spring 1998 Reifschneider Trial and Fall 1998 How UC Spent...) or high profile job loss (see Fall
1998 Discrimination Settlement). Imagine the waste we
would
see if we had more than a peek at UCs legal expenses for cases of
discrimination and
sexual harassment!
-wage@wage.org-