The University of Michigan’s Senate Assembly gathered in the Alexander G. Ruthven Building Monday afternoon to discuss faculty experiences with alleged administrative retaliation with guest panelists.
Art & Design professor Rebekah Modrak, Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs chair, began the meeting by providing chair updates. She reminded members of the upcoming Nov. 4 Faculty Senate meeting, an annual meeting for all 7,600 faculty members, where four separate motions will be discussed and voted on. The motions involve resolutions regarding the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities, modifications to the U-M Standard Practice Guide, a censure of the University’s Board of Regents and accountability for gender-based violence and discrimination at the University. Modrak later encouraged self-nomination for the opening secretary position and for third-year members to nominate faculty to Senate Assembly roles.
Modrak shifted the conversation to discuss how a growing number of faculty members have reached out to her with allegations of serious issues such as lack of transparency and violations of due process they have experienced. She said SACUA’s goal is to support these faculty members and to raise awareness about patterns of intimidation, policy violations or retaliation by the University.
“We aim to advocate for procedural protections that ensure fair and transparent processes in tenure promotion and discrimination cases, to ensure that the grievance and fair hearing processes and other check-balance mechanisms are working effectively to protect faculty and we’re working to confront practices that isolate faculty or deter them from speaking up,” Modrak said.
Panelist Laura Beny, a Law School professor, shared her experience as the second tenure-tracked Black woman throughout the Law School’s 144-year history. Beny alleged she was discriminated against because of her race and gender which ultimately led her to file a grievance against the University and eventually pursue a lawsuit in 2022 under state and federal antidiscrimination laws.
“These include, among others, exclusion from important opportunities, racially and sexually inappropriate comments from male colleagues who received administrative support with no consequences, unequal pay and harassing emails from my associate dean, who later became dean of the Law School,” Beny said. “The same dean demoted me in 2022.”
Beny said she filed a complaint in 2015 with the Equity, Civil Rights, and Title IX Office regarding her salary dropping lower than the salaries of her peers. As a result of the complaint, Beny alleged the Law School penalized her with a five-year salary freeze, a five-year suspension of research support, a two-year suspension from teaching and a demotion from her position as a tenured professor, all without a hearing. Hearings are required by the University regents’ Bylaw 5.09 for disciplinary measures.
“OGC goes to great lengths and expense … to cover up and to defend violations of University policies by administrators,” Beny said. “Fundamentally, the General Counsel, OGC staff and hired outside attorneys serve more as adversarial private attorneys for University administrators against vulnerable faculty than as stewards of compliance.”
Panelist Dr. Parag Patil, associate professor of neurosurgery and associate chair for the Data Office for Clinical & Translational Research, spoke about the retaliation he allegedly faced from leadership within the Michigan Medicine Department of Neurosurgery and the Office of Clinical Affairs. According to Patil, after raising concerns about discrimination and unethical practices, the neurosurgery chair suspended his clinical practice in 2019.
“I was never shown the full report of this investigation, and it was later destroyed,” Patil said. “A subsequent institutional investigation dragged on for eight months. This investigation failed to reveal any objective wrongdoing on my part, yet made vague, subjective and anonymous claims against my character. There was an absolute lack of transparency, I was not informed of specific allegations nor was I provided an opportunity to refute any testimony.”
Shortly after, Patil alleged he was forced to undergo a psychological evaluation and was threatened with an indefinite retraining program. Patil challenged these actions through a hearing and hired a personal attorney, but said he was met with a hearing that blocked any favorable evidence. As a result, he made an appeal to the University of Michigan Health Board to report failure to follow due process but was ultimately denied.
“When a university fails to uphold safeguards and retaliates against faculty who raise concerns, risks to all faculty multiply and become more severe,” Patil said. “Retaliation creates not only a hostile work environment where faculty fear to speak out, but other problems as well. This sinister and silencing effect, and its resultant lack of administrative accountability, lead to unchecked power dynamics that foster administrative corruption and unethical behavior.”
After the panelists shared their stories, the discussion expanded to how this issue reaches beyond their individual cases and involves the entire University and Ann Arbor community. Beny said the lack of safeguards for faculty affects the quality of classroom discourse.
“It has a very detrimental effect on academic exchange, on intellectual exchange,” Beny said. “So, although it may seem separate to my situation, I’m much more cautious about what I talk about in the classroom, especially because they did start digitally surveying me.”
Wayne Petty, professor of music at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and Chair of the Committee on Oversight of Administrative Action (COAA), discussed the actions Senate Assembly members have taken to improve reporting systems for faculty. Last year, the COAA developed a proposal to reform the faculty grievance system at the University. The three major points include requiring U-M administration to follow due process, protecting faculty’s right to defend themselves and to fully participate in the grievance process, and advocating for transparency with past grievance concerns by making the number of cases and general topics of concern available to the public.
“That proposal went to the Faculty Senate, and from there to our Provost,” Petty said. “Our hope and expectation is that the appropriate steps will be taken to implement this carefully crafted set of recommendations which touch directly on matters of faculty governance.”
Daily Staff Reporter Patricia Leoncio can be reached at pleoncio@umich.edu.
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