By Eric Ganci
What Is Your Student Status After Graduation? Can Schools Discipline Professors for Post-Graduation Misconduct?
This heading is what happened in this recent decision Balakrishnan v. Regents of University of California, cited right now as 2024 WL 371554.
Some facts of this case are this:
In 2017, an anonymous letter was published online, accusing plaintiff of engaging in a pattern of sexual intimidation, harassment, and assault against young women and gender nonconforming people during his time as a UCSC professor. The letter contained seven anonymous firsthand accounts of plaintiff’s alleged abuse and called on the University to act. Over 150 people signed this letter to show their support.
A Committee disciplined the professor per the Faculty Code of Conduct and professor argues he should not have been disciplined as such.
This appeal addresses these issues:
Whether a tenured professor could be dismissed and denied emeritus status for sexually abusing (1) a fellow academic at an event held in connection with an off-campus academic conference and (2) a UCSC student whom he volunteered to walk home from an off-campus graduation party, two days after she walked in her graduation ceremony.
The Court here holds against the professor and says this:
Climbing naked and uninvited into bed with and pressing his genitalia against a female academic attending the same academic conference at a party given by the conference host (also a professor) clearly created an unsafe environment not conducive to the sharing of knowledge and values.
And this:
[W]e uphold the University’s finding that plaintiff’s conduct toward Jane Doe at a party held in connection with an off-campus academic conference was subject to discipline under the Faculty Code of Conduct.
The Court reasoned this:
The evidence demonstrated that [the female student] walked in the UCSC graduation ceremony on June 16, 2018, about two days before attending the party after which [the professor] sexually harassed her. In fact, she attended this party in part to celebrate her graduation.
At that time, the University had not yet audited [the student’s] grades or conferred her degree, which did not occur until July 2018. Under these circumstances, we conclude the evidence supports a finding that [the student] was in fact a student under the University’s policies.
