Sexual harassment case details may remain unpublished

Actions against professors seem possible

By: Derek Simons

Posted: 2/11/08

With great attention to privacy issues, UMKC Chancellor Guy Bailey answered direct questions from the Faculty Senate about the sexual harassment case involving Drs. Keith Haddock and Walker S. Carlos Poston II, which resulted in an out-of-court settlement last summer worth $1.1 million and a second internal investigation conducted last fall by Affirmative Action Director Grace Hernandez.

However, in an exchange with Faculty Senate Chair Dr. Gary Ebersole during the Feb. 5 meeting, indications of the actions currently being taken by the university seem to have emerged.

Senator Kathy Krause, director of Women's and Gender Studies, asked Bailey if a public statement would be released.

"There is clearly a need on campus for something to be said or at least done," Krause said.

Bailey said regardless of what happens, "these things are confidential."

Later, in a separate interview, he was asked again if there would ever be a public statement.

"I don't know that I can't even tell you there'll never be any kind of statement," Bailey said.

The report is done and is still in the University of Missouri System Office of General Counsel (OGC), according to Bailey. He repeated several times the limits placed on what he could say, as there are personnel issues involved.

"I know you don't see anything going on, but there are things going on," Bailey said. "It may take things a little while to work themselves out, but things are actually happening … I can't delve into it."

The?Chancellor made clear the case has not been forgotten or pushed aside in any way.

"I can tell you I spent time on it yesterday afternoon [Feb. 4] and again I spent more time on it on Friday [Feb. 1]," Bailey said. "So, it's taking up a lot of my life."

Bailey said the roughly 70 people interviewed by Hernandez were very cooperative and he added he was pleased with the report.

During the meeting, he offered a hypothetical situation where "something was referred to the appropriate faculty committee," and said, in such a case, the faculty members involved have to be respected and left to do their job.

"Attorneys tell us [about] personnel issues, personnel files," Bailey said. "We're both helped and hindered by that. In this case, it's probably a big hindrance to us, but that's just how it is."

Ebersole suggested one option that wouldn't conflict with privacy regulations.

"We can, when the timing is right, re-emphasize again the university's commitment to a policy that respects all people and that there will be no discrimination, sexual harassment or intimidation of any sort," Ebersole said.

As the discussion of the issue was drawing to an end, Ebersole and Bailey mentioned outcomes seeming to indicate the two professors involved in the case might be facing the Campus Faculty Committee on Tenure.

"At this point, it's behind the scenes activity, which, I have to tell you - if accommodation can be reached at that level and the case is settled, it's much better than the alternative, which would be moving into the faculty process," Ebersole said.

"Has this university ever had that process take place?" Bailey asked.

"Not within living memory," Ebersole said.

The committee has the jurisdiction to hear any case involving the dismissal of a faculty member for cause. Until very recently, committee members listed on the Faculty Senate Web site dated back several years. There is now a new list of appointees, all serving for 2007-08.

"I have to say, it's a tough thing on the faculty which is involved," Bailey said. "I went through one in San Antonio, which, in many respects, we had an open and shut deal. But that didn't make it any less difficult."

The two then mentioned a case which received national attention involving Professor Ward Churchill. Churchill was fired from his position at the University of Colorado in 2007 for academic misconduct. Ebersole noted it took four years to resolve Churchill's case.

"That's a messy case," Bailey said.

dsimons@unews.com