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Fired NSU Prof Sues Northern and Former Dean, Alleges Termination Connected To GEAR UP Scandal

Speaking of old scandals, GEAR UP pops into the headlines again as a former Northern prof sues Northern, President Tim Downs, the Board of Regents, and former NSU dean of education Kelly Duncan for being mean to him at work.

Education professor Thomas Orr alleges, among other things, that Dean Duncan entered his office without permission to retrieve a binder about GEAR UP:

Orr contends that Duncan, who was NSU’s dean of education, went into his locked office in 2015 without his permission to retrieve a binder that she loaned him that included details of her involvement with Gear Up. Duncan had been hired to independently evaluate the program. Orr says in his lawsuit that he filed a complaint with the university because Duncan entered his office [Jonathan Ellis, “GEAR UP Scandal and Retaliation Are at the Heart of Lawsuit Against Northern State,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2019.11.14].

Reviewing Orr’s complaint, I wouldn’t say GEAR is “at the heart” of the lawsuit. The binder incident gets glancing mention in a litany of complaints of alleged unfair treatment that ended with denial of tenure and termination this year. The complaint gives no information about what Dr. Orr may have read in this supposed binder; the complaint only refers to his being punished for proetcted speech.

Dr. Orr seeks reinstatement to his position at Northern (he’s currently commuting weekly to teach in Kearney, Nebraska) and at least $75K in damages.

11 Comments

  1. leslie 2019-11-15 16:19

    Rounds/Daugaard SDGOP legacy to the trust responsibility to American Indian children and young adults.

  2. T 2019-11-15 19:04

    Who is his attorney? Or did I miss that

  3. Debbo 2019-11-15 20:16

    Is there any meat on this bone?

  4. David Newquist 2019-11-16 11:35

    I, too, wonder if Orr has an attorney or consulted any of the policies that apply. Placing emphasis on the dean entering his office to retrieve a file is a matter covered by the collective bargaining agreement of which he seems to be unaware:

    “18.2 Office Security: Ordinarily, administrators will have access to a faculty unit member’s office spaces or locked furniture only with the authorization of the faculty unit member. In exceptional circumstances, when the faculty unit member is unavailable and is not expected to return in time to provide necessary assistance or cannot be reached to provide authorization, an administrator may enter the space for some routine administrative purpose, for instance, to obtain a file that would be provided as a matter of course. Administrators may also enter without notice when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the entry will turn up evidence that the faculty unit member is guilty of work-related misconduct.”

    The fact is that many people have access to the offices. Maintenance personnel have keys for nightly cleaning. In my case, work study students and secretaries had keys so they could have access to their work when I was in class or occupied elsewhere. The main concern about office security was keeping tests, student papers, and records safe from predatory eyes.

    The serious accusations are the Dean’s “treatment of a minority professor, inflating student grades and submitting bogus data to the school’s accrediting organization…” But these are not offenses inflicted upon Orr personally and for which he has a valid claim for damages. If there is substantive evidence of these matters, the administration would have just cause to take disciplinary action against the dean, but there is a question of what agency has jurisdiction that a faculty member can report to. The Board of Regents is the supervising agency, but they are disinclined to investigate their administrations. The North Central Association, which is the accrediting agency, might be interested in examining false data submitted to it, but it does not have a record of enforcing matters of academic integrity. The American Association of University Professors would be an organization that would take up Orr’s complaint if the evidence was strong. They have placed Northern on sanction before and would do it again if there is proof of the violations that Orr specifies. Other professional academic organizations might also issue sanctions, but it is unlikely that the case can proceed very far in court unless Orr has proof to demonstrate the misconduct he charges.

  5. David Newquist 2019-11-16 11:47

    If he has evidence that he was denied tenure and was dismissed as retaliation for his knowledge of discrimination and academic misconduct, he could seek to have NSU sanctioned, but his evidence would have to be clear and irrefutable to stand up in court.

  6. Debbo 2019-11-16 14:49

    Thank you, Dr. Newquist. Will you tell us when NSU was sanctioned previously and why?

  7. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-11-16 19:54

    Orr’s complaint is signed by attorney Stephanie Pochop of Gregory. The complaint also lists Jim Kaster and Matthew Frank of Nichols Kaster from Minneapolis as attorneys.

  8. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-11-16 20:08

    Thanks for citing that section of the collective bargaining agreement, Dr. Newquist. On my campus, I assume that my office, like my computer, belongs to the institution, not me, and thus is entirely open to my supervisors. If I have any student records covered by FERPA, I would assume that my supervisors have as much right to see them as I do to have them.

  9. David Newquist 2019-11-16 23:07

    Debbo and Cory,

    First, I read the complaint and, although procedures may have changed in the 20 years since I worked on campus, some of the representations conflict with the way promotion and tenure processes are supposed to work. As I was a collective bargaining negotiator, a grievance officer, and union president at both the campus and state levels. I was involved in many contract disputes. Dr. Orr’s complaint is about a promotion and tenure decision which he contends was prejudiced and unscrupulous. The complaint cites a number of instances, some petty and some of serious academic import, of his negative relationship with Dean Duncan. But the suit proceeds under violations of the Family Medical Leave Act rather than violations of academic honesty, which would more directly address the denial of tenure. If there were acts of oppression against a Korean faculty member, the forcing of faculty to change grades, favoritism for athletes, etc., evidence that his knowledge and protest of such acts would go a long way toward proving his case in court.

    One of the disturbing matters stated in the complaint was that his nemesis, Kelly Duncan, sat on his promotion and tenure committee. In that regard, I quote from the Collective Bargaining Contract: “individual committee members will recuse themselves whenever their ability to make a disinterested judgment might reasonably be called into question.”
    If you wonder why, after 20 years I am so acquainted with the contract, it’s because I wrote and negotiated some of its provisions.

    And as for NSU being sanctioned by the AAUP, I may be approximate about some dates, as my papers (which I would have to consult) are in a storage unit. However, about 1966. a political science professor found himself in much the same circumstance as Dr. Orr and was suddenly terminated. He filed a complaint with AAUP, which investigated and found that no effort at due process was involved in the firing and, therefore, Northern had violated the principles of academic freedom and integrity and was placed on sanction.

    When I came to Northern in 1979, it was the first year the state system was operating under a collective bargaining agreement which specified promotion and tenure procedures and due process. I was a member of the AAUP when I came to Northern. President Joseph McFadden contacted AAUP about lifting the sanction, and with a contract in force which corrected many procedural deficiencies, talks were initiated about a review of Northern. It took years. In the early 1980s, AAUP designated a professor from the University of St. Thomas to come to Northern and conduct a review. I was asked to act as a host and arrange meetings with the administration, the academic departments, and the faculty organizations for him. I did. He stayed at my house and used my campus office. He submitted a favorable report as far as the campus was concerned. AAUP also had a sanction on SDSU. It lifted the sanctions from the two universities and placed them on the Board of Regents to resolve. This was about 1984. The professor fired from Northern was working in California by this time and received a cash settlement from the Regents, which lifted the sanction altogether.

  10. Debbo 2019-11-16 23:44

    Thanks. It will be interesting to see what comes of the current claim.

    I was at NSC 1971-76 and had no idea any of that was going on.

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