I
l .
st uculfy hiring ¤nd promofions. Coping with increased litigation has agencies, commissions, boards, and
it . A decision rendered in the 1974 become very expensive, and costs are quasi-judicial bodies with jurisdiction
af F case of Faro vs. New York rising rapidly at a time when colleges over some aspect of higher education.
io   Unzixersity stated: "Of all fields and universities are already struggling "Proceedings can be quite complex, and
W which the federal courts Should to make ends meet. Stanford is probably the legal sanctions these agencies may
IY 5 hesitate to invade and take over, educa- typical: its legal expenses have quad- invoke can be quite substantial,” says
$· l tion and faculty appointments at a uni- rupled in less than a decade and now ex- Professor Kaplin.
[0 _ versity level are probably least suited for ceed $l—mil1ion annually. Even at small, The cost is not entirely monetary
?€ ~ federal court supervision." It is a mea- non-resident community colleges, an- when the courts intrude into academe.
’d 4 sure of the swiftness of change in this nual legal bills of $200,000 are becom- In peril is the right of colleges and uni-
B‘ area that the Faro precedent has al- ing commonplace. versities to decide for themselves such
T ready been substantially supplanted. A Preventive measures consume much matters as academic standards, hiring
lk . year ago Christine Sweeney, a professor of the money and considerable staff and promotion policies, criteria for ad-
[0 of education at Keene State College, time, as administrators (now personally mission, and various intemal gover-
is l won a sex discrimination suit in which liable) try to avoid potential lawsuits by nance practices. judges and juries are
fl' she charged that she had been denied a checking decisions and policies against more and more ready to intervene in
ld full professorship unfairly on two preyi- the mountain of state, local, and complex academic and managerial is-
id ous occasions. Perhaps more important federal regulations that govern their op- sues, and, as they do, institutional I
ih than the fact that she was the first erations these days. Shortly before he re- autonomy is eroded. For example:
Jr woman to win a faculty promotion or signed as president of the University of • A judge in Pennsylvania recently
lc tenure case. was the court ruling that Cincinnati, Warren Bennis com- awarded tenure to Connie Rae Kunda,
called into question the "hands off" atti· plained: "I find I must consult our a physical education instructor at Muh-
E` tude that earlier courts had taken with lawyers over even small, trivial deci- lenburg College who claimed discrimi-
lg respect to faculty promotion cases- sions. The university has so many suits nation because she had not been told
C' The ink had hardly dried on the against it now that my mother calls me the full requirements for tenure at the
ICS Sweeney decision before a second U.S. ‘my son, the defendant’." time of her appointment.
es appellate court used the same argument When an institution actually finds it- • When Wilson College's trustees de-
ln in the case of Geraldine Powell, a part- self in court, the costs can be staggering. cided to close the school last year be-
lle time professor of architecture at In a class action sex discrimination suit cause it could not reverse a steepening
"` Syracuse who claimed her contract was (eventually settled out of court), Brown decline in student enrollment, the judge
Ec not renewed because she is black. Her University spent more than $1-million stepped in on the side of concerned
ta case was tried in the same court which in legal fees, indirect costs, and costs of alumnae and ordered the college to re-
Ot had rendered the Faro decision just five the settlement. The University of Mary- main open. He expressed doubts that
of years earlier. And although all the land spent more than $1-million to win the college was run properly and be-
i'€ justices agreed that Professor Powell’s an affirmative action suit. And the Uni- lieved it could do a better job in attract-
`€‘ case had no merit, the court now versity of California at Davis, still ab- ing students by revamping its curricu-
lY» backed away from Faro and declared: sorbing heavy legal costs of five years of lum and changing its approach to ad-
“` wl-`his anti·interVentionist policy has litigation in the Allan Bakke reverse dis- missions.
rendered colleges · - -VirtuallyirnInune crimination case, was handed a bill • A U.S. District judge in Tennessee
J to charges of employment bias-ll (which it is disputing) last fall for an ad- has given predominantly black Tennes-
ditional $437,000 in legal fees for see State University control over the
  Bakke’s lawyers. University of Tennessee’s Nashville cam-
?` • • The cost of liti ation is so hi h that pus in order to end duplicative pro-
( As court Iniervenilon institutions are grcreasingly egger to grams and facilitate desegregation. A
· • , settle out of court. When a student sued similar suit, seeking the merger of pre-
Increases:   l\ ,. Carleton College for violating his civil dominantly white Armstrong State Col-
, , ,    fh rights with a ban on student-owned lege with historically black Savannah
Instltuilllonui ` o‘_ automobiles, the trustees settled despite State College, is being heard in a
• their attorney’s assurance of victory. federal court in Georgia.
j ¤u1'°nQmy |$ Q|'QdQd, The trustees figured that settlement, ° In New York this year, a court told
j even though it might encourage others the state's board of higher education
A to sue, was preferable to the estimated that a graduate student who had been
“"" ( $40,000 in legal fees it would cost to
j fight the suit.
In his prize-winning book, The Law
of Hzgher Education, Catholic Univer-
sity Professor William A. Kaplin points
out that costly and time consuming
legal business is not confined to the
( courtroom. The increase in regulation
and government-mandated social pro-
grams has resulted in a variety of
7