Some regular readers of TFL know that I occasionally represent law professors in employment-related disputes. And if these cases are of potentially wider interest to the law professor community and my clients want their cases to be publicized, I have occasionally posted about those cases. Well, I have a new law professor client, and I believe her case meets both criteria.
Professor Lauren Gilbert has been a faculty member at St. Thomas University Benjamin L. Crump College of Law (in Miami, not to be confused with University of St. Thomas Law School in Minnesota) since 2002. She received tenure and promotion to full professor in 2009. After 22 years of employment, and 15 as a full tenured professor, on July 18, 2024 her career came to a jarring end when she became what I believe to be the first tenured law professor at an ABA-Accredited Law School to be treated as an at-will employee and summarily terminated.
On that day, STUCL Dean Tarlika Nuñez-Navarro served Professor Gilbert with a Notice of Termination. The letter notified her that she was terminated, effective immediately. She was given one day to clear out her office and return University property and was escorted on and off campus by campus security.
STUCL, like all ABA law schools, is required to have an academic freedom and tenure policy (See ABA Standard 405(b)), and it did. The policy with respect to the termination of tenured professors is set forth in the College of Law’s Faculty Handbook. Professor Gilbert’s employment contract explicitly incorporated the terms of the Faculty Handbook, and the Faculty Handbook states that its terms are incorporated into each faculty member’s contract. The provisions related to the termination of tenured faculty members are quite clear and unambiguous.
There is a section in the Handbook entitled, “Tenure, Promotion and Reappointment.” Under the subsection entitled “Full-Time Faculty” Paragraph I. Application, it states: “These regulations shall govern all decisions on the promotion, tenure, retention and termination of members of the faculty of law of the University.” In the following paragraph, entitled “Contracts” it is stated: “These procedures shall be incorporated by reference into each faculty member’s contract.”
The Handbook contains a section, entitled “VII. Standards and Procedures for Termination of a Faculty Member for Cause.” This section states, in pertinent part:
- Tenured Faculty Members. Once tenure is acquired, a contract of continuing employment exists which may be terminated only for adequate cause.
In case of termination for cause of a continuous appointment, or where facts may be in dispute, the affected faculty member shall be informed in writing of any charges or facts and shall have the right to both the Informal and Formal procedures approved by the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the Association of American Law Schools (December 27, 1967), set forth in the Model Code of Procedure for Academic Freedom and Tenure 21 J.L. EDUCATION 222-34 (1968), and incorporated herein by reference. Faculty members on continuous appointment who are dismissed for reasons not involving moral turpitude shall receive their salaries from the date of notification of dismissal, whether or not they are continued in their duties at the institution.
Citing these provisions, Professor Gilbert wrote to the University complaining that she had been wrongfully terminated and was entitled to these procedures. She was referred to the University’s outside counsel. At that point, she hired me.
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