St. Thomas College of Law reinstates fired tenured professor, will start termination hearings
After firing a tenured professor in July, the St. Thomas University Benjamin L. Crump College of Law has reinstated her for the purpose of formally terminating her via the due process rights spelled out in the faculty handbook. (Photo courtesy of St. Thomas University)
Updated: After firing a tenured professor in July, the St. Thomas University Benjamin L. Crump College of Law has reinstated her for the purpose of formally terminating her via the due process rights spelled out in the faculty handbook.
On Tuesday, the Florida-based school sent a letter to professor Lauren Gilbert signed by David A. Armstrong, the university’s president, spelling out the plan.
“Based on the foregoing instances of your demonstrated misconduct and/or disregard for university and law school policies, the law school believes that your dismissal from employment with the university is warranted,” wrote Armstrong in the Aug. 27 letter.
According to the July termination letter, grounds for firing Gilbert include an altercation in which she grabbed a security guard in 2010, as well as more recent incidents, among them being dismissive of rumors about an active shooter on campus. This week’s letter adds an “inappropriate relationship” with a student.
“Professor Gilbert categorically denies having any inappropriate relationship with any former student, ever,” wrote David Frakt, Gilbert’s attorney who specializes in academic cases, via email to the ABA Journal. “This accusation is completely fact-free. The alleged student is not named, and no details are provided as to what made the alleged relationship inappropriate.”
He added that St. Thomas University “has been advised to expect a defamation lawsuit.”
The letter comes about two weeks after Gilbert filed a lawsuit in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, Florida, against the law school, claiming that she had been treated as an at-will employee and not a tenured full professor.
The university had cited staff handbook procedures in her firing. But Gilbert alleges that the 2021-2022 edition of the law faculty handbook states in its ABA-required policy regarding academic freedom and tenure that tenured faculty members “may be terminated only for adequate cause.”
Where facts are in dispute, the faculty member has the right to “the informal and formal procedures” set by the now-outdated Association of American Law Schools, according to the suit, and to benefits and salary during the processes. Those include a hearing in front of their tenured peers, the suit says.
Gilbert had been fired in July, effective immediately, without following those procedures, according to the suit.
The July letter stated that when violation of safety rules are involved, the university employee handbook “reserves the right to terminate an employee, without warning, for any reason or no reason,” and that it then supersedes the faculty handbook.
Now, Gilbert’s salary and benefits have been renewed while the procedures referenced law faculty handbook are conducted, according to the Aug. 27 letter. Armstrong also invited Gilbert, who received full tenure in 2009, to a Sept. 27 meeting to discuss issues regarding her future employment.
If no resolution or settlement results at or before that meeting, a formal hearing of her tenured peers would follow, “but I would anticipate that it would not be earlier than November,” Frakt wrote.
“I consider the university’s complete capitulation to our demands to be an implicit concession that their position that a tenured professor could be treated as an at-will employee was legally indefensible,” Frakt wrote.
Per Armstrong’s letter, Gilbert will not return to the St. Thomas University campus, including the law school. Previously, she taught contracts, constitutional law and family law courses. Classes started Aug. 19.
“The letter falsely suggests that this provision was agreed upon by myself as Professor Gilbert’s counsel, although I agreed to nothing of the sort,” Frakt wrote. That statement implies that Gilbert “was somehow a danger or a threat to others. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“The university values tenure as an academic function for teaching and for academic freedom,” according to a university statement sent to the Journal via email. “However, tenure is not a shield for inappropriate conduct that endangers the community and/or our students.”
Updated Aug. 29 at 6:25 p.m. with a response from Frakt.
