Unequal consideration and discrimination during hiring and termination?

[ratiocinate]

I have been working as a part-time faculty union member for the past two years. The position was changed to a full-time position, and the hiring process opened up to the general public. I, and another part-time member at the campus, made it to the final round. The other candidate received the position, and I am being offered part-time hours for the upcoming year.

During the application process and interviews, the Dean kept telling me that he had part-time hours available for the summer and fall and invited me to meetings to talk about classes only offered to part-time faculty for the summer, but he did not invite the other candidate.

Staff have overheard that the decision for who members on the hiring committee would vote for was made before the final interview round. Also, after speaking with people who wrote the hiring policies, the hiring committee did not follow some of those policies.

Members of the hiring committee said that both candidates were equally qualified. Yet, they decided to hire the candidate that had less years of experience and no work experience in the program. Their reason was that the other candidate had more experience. When I spoke with this to HR, they would not respond to my emails.

Some faculty have expressed to me that the hiring decision might have been based on ethnicity.

The union would not assist me. Are there any legal avenues I can take?

 

[cbg]

Not based on what you have posted. Unless otherwise provided by contract or CBA, they are free to hire whomever they choose. They are not required to hire the person with the most years experience or who has previously worked in the program.

Do you have a valid and supportable reason to believe that your ethnicity played a roll?

 

[Green_Hornet]

I have been working as a part-time faculty union member for the past two years. The position was changed to a full-time position, and the hiring process opened up to the general public. I, and another part-time member at the campus, made it to the final round. The other candidate received the position, and I am being offered part-time hours for the upcoming year.

During the application process and interviews, the Dean kept telling me that he had part-time hours available for the summer and fall and invited me to meetings to talk about classes only offered to part-time faculty for the summer, but he did not invite the other candidate.

Staff have overheard that the decision for who members on the hiring committee would vote for was made before the final interview round. Also, after speaking with people who wrote the hiring policies, the hiring committee did not follow some of those policies.

Members of the hiring committee said that both candidates were equally qualified. Yet, they decided to hire the candidate that had less years of experience and no work experience in the program. Their reason was that the other candidate had more experience. When I spoke with this to HR, they would not respond to my emails.

Some faculty have expressed to me that the hiring decision might have been based on ethnicity.

The union would not assist me. Are there any legal avenues I can take?

Arbitration provisions covering colleges and universities do not differ widely from those in other types of employment relation ships with the exception of their "exclusions" most cases fall into the following classifications: tenure, promotion, appointment/reappointment, due process, compensation, challenge to arbitratability, work assignment/evaluation procedure, and sex discrimination.

The problem is most of these grievances and the contract question is the "academic judgment" exclusion provision in the contract, universities have "institutional rules" incorporated in the contract that fall into play as well. This could be why the union declined to follow through.

Your case presents some hurdles and they are not unique. An arbitrator hearing a faculty personnel case faces serious challenges in determining standards the hiring committee relied on, even if they did not use any academic judgment at all. Another problem much of the peer review information is confidential, that only adds to the problem for the union to grieve.

There are a few higher education C.B.A that spell out requirements for retention, promotion, and so on, but they are so general as to offer any help in many cases. University past practice can flesh out such contract language, but even that leaves the hiring committee wide discretion.

The one thing you may be able to do is contact a labor law attorney familiar with higher educational contracts. He may be able to get it to an arbitrator if the union refused to file a grievance depending on the contract language.

The attorney will still face the same obstacles the union does, so you may have to talk to several before you find one. You can try to put more heat on the union as well, by going over the stewards head. To the local or national chairman in hopes of finding a symapthetic ear.

There have been some successful cases where an attorney has moved a case to arbitration the union declined, and succeeded, there have been some where they failed but that opens a small window to the court.

I would not give up on it until you exhausted either possibility.

 

[ratiocinate]

Thank you both for your responses! cbg, the only verification I have is that one of the members of the hiring committee specifically said that they voted for the other candidate because of their ethnicity, but I did not hear this myself.

Green Hornet, thank you for the detailed response. I have talked with additional union representatives, but they also think that I cannot pursue that avenue, because no specific procedure was broken, only a lot of inappropriate and unethical actions.

I have contacted labor law attorneys, but have not received responses to my initial consultations yet.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to let this one go, unfortunately. Thanks once again!