linfield university controversy

At Linfield, the report says, deeply-held resistance to Black leadership and culture fueled the ferocity of resistance to organization change. The report also said that Davis had not had time to build a rapport with the faculty and staff at Linfield because he needed to make changes quickly. Dr. Tompkins remembered slightly different wording. In a June 17, 2019, email to board members, Baca wrote that Jubb, 71, had advised him he was resigning due to health concerns. Baca cited Jubbs valuable service to the board and the College and urged gratitude for his positive contributions.. Davis denied making this comment before he admitted making it. Perhaps Davis shifted to the remark about the trustee because he conceded to the Chronicle that he had, in fact, made the remark about Jewish noses that Pollack-Pelzner had alleged: A campus investigation last August into the nose comment, along with other matters, called it a he said, he said situation and stated that Davis had denied saying it. David Baca, the embattled chair of Linfield Universitys board of trustees, said he offered to resign after a faculty vote of no confidence in late May over his handling of sexual abuse allegations against another trustee, but other trustees convinced him to stay on. The boards executive committee has repeatedly expressed its confidence in Davis and Baca, and the board is poised to vote at its next meeting to eliminate the voting faculty trustee seat and add nonvoting faculty members. Earlier this week, Linfield University fired a tenured professor who had spoken out about allegations of sexual misconduct, as well as antisemitism, against university leaders. I havent seen any indication that people in positions of power at Linfield want to hold themselves accountable., Other organizations have also come out in Pollack-Pelzners defense. Mr. Jubb has pleaded not guilty and his case is scheduled for trial in November, his lawyer said. If Davis believes that Linfield can prove that Pollack-Pelzner violated university policy, he should submit that question to an unbiased faculty committee, as due process requires. Presented by FIRE and College Pulse, the 2022 College Free Speech Rankings is the largest survey of campus free expression ever performed. But my fellow trustees, who are very familiar with the events, have urged me to remain as Chairman. The indictment came after a student trustee filed a federal lawsuit in which she accused Mr. Jubb, 72, of assaulting her after a faculty-trustee dinner. Pollack-Pelzners tweets stated that he was censored by the board in meetings. The president said he was unaware of the guidelines, hadnt seen the most recent version of the faculty handbook, didnt know who had updated it, and didnt believe it had been approved by the administration. Linfield has extensive and robust programs to educate and train students, faculty and staff on matters of discrimination, sexual harassment and misconduct, and intolerance, Davis wrote. In response, he said, Mr. Baca, the board chairman, accused me a Jewish trustee of harboring a secret agenda to grab power.. Discover who you're meant to be. Click here! This is simply not how tenure works. There is a jury trial scheduled for that case in November. President Davis has been accused of being divisive, intimidating, combative, aggressive, disrespectful and abusive. Some have called for the universitys president to resign. Miri Cypers, the groups regional director, said that while the A.D.L. A group of Stanford faculty are publicly objecting to a campus harm reporting system they say chills campus speech. The report finds that Linfield's administration violated the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the institution's own regulations, which incorporate AAUP . In a letter responding to the ADL, Davis invited the group to meet following the academic year but rebuffed the call to resign. That lawsuit is still pending. As the fallout continues over Linfield Universitys summary termination of a tenured professor with no process whatsoever the Chronicle of Higher Educations new story on the controversy is a must-read. Several professors have of late used mass emails or publicly criticized the university for what they describe as Linfield's poor handling of several sexual misconduct complaints involving members of the Board of Trustees. If a person walks up and punches a student in the face, youre telling me I need to go convene a group of people before I take any action against them?. Dies geschieht in Ihren Datenschutzeinstellungen. Resources for faculty and staff from our partners at Times Higher Education. With its 52-23 win over Pacific University (Ore.) on Saturday, the Linfield Wildcats moved to 5-0 on the season and guaranteed themselves a 65th consecutive winning season. The handbook was last updated in January of this year, according to the Chronicle. I dont know how anybody could feel safe in this environment., Linfield University Fires Professor Who Spoke Out About Misconduct Cases, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/us/Linfield-university-professor-fired.html. That concession is damning for Davis and Linfields claim that Pollack-Pelzners allegation is defamatory. That is exactly what FIRE is telling Davis and the institution he currently leads. As Linfield adapts to meet the needs of a new generation of students and the demands of a quickly evolving world of higher education, the Board also has to adapt and change. We've also seen the firings of two faculty members at Collin College for criticizing their administration about their COVID-19 reopening plans, . Further, the Oregon Board of Rabbis also called for the resignation of President Davis without talking with him or conducting an investigation of any kind.. Her gift included real estate in Spokane, Washington, valued at $250,000 (a sum worth nearly $4 million in 2020). Sign up to get important news and culture from around the Northwest, delivered to your inbox six days a week. Anyone can read what you share. Daviss answer is wildly implausible on its face and incomprehensibly at odds with the basic conception of tenure. Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan are reviving it. Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a tenured. Linfield University is affiliated with American Baptist Churches, USA. (JTA) In the latest developments in an ongoing controversy at Linfield University over the firing of a tenured Jewish professor who accused the school of anti-Semitism, a report from the. He said that as an African-American man, he understands the need for education, training and community engagement on matters of discrimination and intolerance.. So eight criminal charges total, not all of them felonies. Related Stories Alumni push for change at Linfield University amid allegations of harassment, misconduct. Baca was with the group at the bar. If the NAACP would like to talk with me I would be happy to speak, he said, but he noted that the group had not responded to a list of questions he and several other professors had sent them about the investigation. Davis invited the NAACP to investigate whether he was subject to racist treatment after he was accused both of antisemitism as well as sexual assault. In another incident, Dr. Friedman reported that Dr. Davis had come up from behind her after a panel discussion in 2018 and had rubbed his hands up and down her arms while whispering that he was looking forward to meeting her later, she said. This is what systemic and institutionalized racism looks like in Oregon., The N.A.A.C.P. Linfields trustees failed see that deeply held resistance to Black leadership and culture fueled the ferocity of resistance to organization change, the report said. No. After 13 years on the Board and four years as chair, Dave decided it was in Linfields best interest that he step down and allow new leaders to come to the forefront, Scott Nelson, university spokesman, told The Oregonian. Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. The president said that it had nothing to do with his fitness as a teacher or a researcher (though thats the standard, according to the faculty handbook). You will receive a link to create a new password via email. Dr. Davis said that an investigation had reached the same conclusion about the accusations against Mr. Nixon, who could not be reached. Learn with FIRE provides learners with the opportunity to take courses on a wide range of topics, including free speech and due process, designed by our expert staff. And the Anti-Defamation Leagues Pacific Northwest office urged Dr. Davis to consider stepping down. Now people. MSE News. Linfield President Miles Davis said in a responding letter that the professors tweets were part of a smear campaign against university administration. Some of those counts relate to a female Linfield student who filed a federal lawsuit in 2019 stating that Jubb had sexually assaulted her, inappropriately touching and grabbing her without her consent. statement last year from the Executive Committee of the universitys board of trustees. Review Beyond the Classroom Academic Opportunities Learning at Linfield spans well beyond the traditional classroom setting. In a statement, the university said Dr. Pollack-Pelzner had been fired for cause., He has engaged in conduct that is harmful to the university; deliberately violated instructions to preserve the attorney-client privilege, and deliberately circulated false statements about the university, its employees and its board and refused to comply with university policies, the statement said. gave support to his account of racial bias, releasing a report that praised Dr. Daviss leadership and said he had been subjected to unfair personal attacks because of his race. Agre-Kippenhan, Linfields Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, does Davis no favors in playing second fiddle. With their support, I will continue to lead the Board to the best of my ability and serve the university I love, he wrote in a statement the university released last week. The employee handbook every page of which is stamped Revised December 2020 (by Finance & Administration) expressly refers to the faculty handbook and specifically cites the faculty handbooks appendix laying out the procedural mechanisms for disciplinary action involving tenured faculty. It said that he had been called divisive, intimidating, combative, aggressive, disrespectful and abusive, which the report called coded racist language. In its letter Thursday, Anti-Defamation League Pacific Northwest Regional Director Miri Cypers wrote that the ADL is not representing Pollack-Pelzner as his attorney nor is it in a position to verify his allegations, but that it is troubled by his descriptions of the incidents. But affording a faculty member some kind of process before imposing any disciplinary action Davis wants? In his first detailed statement on the complaints, Baca wrote that he regretted, that we did not strictly enforce an order that Mr. Jubb refrain from fraternizing with students during the evening when the second incident allegedly took place., He said he realized too late that a mistake had been made in allowing Mr. Jubb to attend the bar gathering after the faculty/trustee dinner. Regarding the Listservs, Linfields vice president for finance and administration wrote to faculty and staff members over the weekend to say that based on the request of many faculty we are pausing access to global and college/school emails lists due to the use of these lists to send unsolicited messages. Even mass emails about the general education revision are paused, and Linfield requests that all broad correspondence be vetted and distributed by the vice presidents office. The refusal to take this action, and the defiant tone within these messages about the possibility of even considering such a step, perpetuates an image of Linfield as an organization that is not adequately addressing sexual misconduct allegations, Miller wrote. Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. The snitcheror whistleblowerin this case is Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, who was until recently a tenured Shakespeare scholar and a voting faculty member on Linfields Board of Trustees. That is our challenge and our charge.. The Oregon Board of Rabbis called on Dr. Davis and Mr. Baca to resign. The small private university has weathered controversy recently, with the high-profile departure of a faculty member who drew attention to accusations of sexual harassment by school leaders. Dr. Davis said those accusations and others were being rehashed by professors unhappy with his restructuring of the university after years of declining enrollment. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found itself at the center of a national controversy in May, when news broke that the UNC board of trustees diverted from the normal tenure process and declined to consider tenure for Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, despite a faculty recommendation that she be hired with tenure. Jewish and Arab noses, he explained, are actually around the same size. Richard Belzer was a Jewish comedian. It is exciting to be part of Linfield during this time of evolution and progress, and I look forward to working with faculty, staff, administration and the Linfield community as we design and begin our new strategic planning process, Carmody said in a statement. Davis is Linfields first Black president, and the report said that since 1970, no Black people have been elected as faculty trustee or faculty executive chair. The only major offered is Nursing. Faculty supported the motion 88 to 18. Davis also argued that a. It becomes an echo chamber that I have to spend my time defending, as opposed to looking at the scope of my lifes work, he said. These are real issues that Linfield has to deal with, and I understand the impulse to blame the messenger and claim that the harm is in the act of reporting rather than whats being reported, but Im hopeful that if we continue to shed a light on these abuses of power that that will allow us eventually to be able to rebuild and heal, Pollack-Pelzner said. According to the school spokesman, Baca purposefully sat next to Jubb at the bar in 2019 when he learned the student-trustee also had gone there with Jubb and other trustees. Resources for faculty and staff from our partners at Times Higher Education. Portland Campus 2900 NE 132nd Ave Portland, Oregon 97230 971-369-4100. eCampus Online and Continuing Education (OCE) Online degrees and certificates 503-883-2200 Link to home page . Dr. Pollack-Pelzner said he had taken the letter as a personal attack, adding that he had been ordered not to talk about sexual misconduct outside of executive session and had then been banned from attending the sessions and finally fired after speaking out on Twitter. Nelson said outside law firms, internal investigators and the universitys human resources office investigated and found no evidence to support the claims of antisemitic comments Pollack-Pelzner laid out in his posts. There will be a trial and the facts will be determined by a jury. We strive for an inclusive and welcoming campus for our students and employees.. In his recent statement, Baca said his email to trustees announcing Jubbs resignation was supposed to be a private note., For those who expected me to publicly denounce Mr. Jubb, I would remind them that there had not been an investigation and there were no findings. That failure led to sexual abuse allegations against trustee David Jubb stemming from a 2019 encounter between Jubb and a student-trustee at a bar after a faculty-trustee dinner. Linfield University announced Tuesday that the chair of its Board of Trustees, David Baca, has stepped down from the leadership post after four years, including a tumultuous last several months at the private college in McMinnville. As for whether he faces eight felony charges or one felony charge and seven misdemeanors, the remark is substantially true: He does, in fact, face eight criminal charges. If your rights are in jeopardy, get in touch with us: thefire.org/alarm. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. In a long March 29 Twitter thread, Pollack-Pelzner claimed that Board Chair David Baca told him that the Board never had a problem until [Pollack-Pelzner] became a trustee. He says that Linfields President, Miles K. Davis, told him that he was putting Linfield at risk by reporting claims of sexual misconduct, threatened [Pollack-Pelzner] with personal liability, and claimed that people like [Pollack-Pelzner] were destroying [Linfield] from within and could only show loyalty by accepting the teachings of Jesus Christ. Pollack-Pelzner is Jewish. One of those trustees resigned in 2019 and has been charged with sexual abuse. Nor is this a policy that somehow escaped the administrations approval: It has been in Linfields faculty handbook since at least 2013. Sie knnen Ihre Einstellungen jederzeit ndern. So to Speak podcast transcript: What is academic freedom? $2.3B Qcells Solar Power Investment Holds Major Potential for Georgia - January 26, 2023. Lost your password? Linfield has pushed back on this criticism, saying it investigated the most recent complaints in question and no university policies were found to have been violated. The people who have been accused deny that these things were ever said, Linfield spokesperson Scott Nelson said in a statement. All Ive been trying to do for the last two years is to get Linfield leadership to follow its own policies. Linfield University, a liberal arts college in Oregon, claims repeatedly in its faculty handbook to honor academic freedom. Davis has denied the allegations, and the university has supported him, even in the face of a vote by the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences calling on him to resign. On Friday, the local branch of the N.A.A.C.P. The local ADL representative did not respond to a call for comment on Friday. In an effort to squelch criticism, the colleges administrators caught the attention of major defenders of academic freedom, as well as the Anti-Defamation League. The Save Our Linfield nonprofit has raised more than $10,000 for a legal defense fund for . 13 among all public universities in the United States by Niche, a research company that produces an annual Liked by Kendra (Preugschat) Hill The fact that Linfield violated its own policies is so clear that President Davis can only assert that the handbook, which was revised as recently as 2020 and is almost certainly contractually binding, is woefully out of date. As more than one reporter has observed, the employee handbook, which Davis asserts is a better guide, refers readers to the very appendix in which the procedures Linfield failed to follow are set forth. The FIRE Legal Network is a nationwide group of attorneys to whom we refer cases when counsel is necessary and the matter at issue falls outside the scope of FIREs mission or ability to assist. Promising to be open about budget cuts, he quoted a former professor of his who used to make the analogy, You dont send the Jews to the shower with soap, Dr. Linder said. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Baca acknowledged mentioning a power grab in a long and contentious discussion but said he had not known that Dr. Pollack-Pelzner was Jewish or that the comment could be construed as anti-Semitic. OPBs critical reporting and inspiring programs are made possible by the power of member support. And because of the incompetent despotism of some of its leaders, Linfield is now a national story. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Dismissal for cause must not be used to restrain faculty members in their exercise of academic freedom or other rights of [an] American citizen. Dismissal for cause must be preceded by, among other things, a statement of charges and a hearing. During the hearing process, the faculty member may not be suspended, much less fired, unless immediate harm to the faculty member or others is threatened by continuance.. 8025 Linfield Way #1, Atlanta GA, is a Townhouse home that contains 2509 sq ft and was built in 2020.It contains 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. Philadelphia, PA 19106. But the committee disclosed that a faculty member in February accused one trustee of inappropriate touching of the shoulder and another trustee of inappropriate touching of the leg. The committee didnt name the trustees and said an outside investigator is looking into the complaint. And abusive conception of tenure Mr. Baca to resign agre-kippenhan, Linfields Provost and Vice for. On its face and incomprehensibly at odds with the events, have urged me to as! 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