St. Thomas College of Law reinstates fired professor and begins termination hearings

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St. Thomas College of Law reinstates fired professor and begins termination hearings

By Julianne Hill

August 29, 2024, 10:22 a.m. CDT

After terminating a tenured professor in July, St. Thomas University's Benjamin L. Crump College of Law has now reinstated her and formally terminated her based on due process rights set forth in the faculty handbook.

On Tuesday, the Florida-based school sent a letter signed by David A. Armstrong, the university's president, to professor Lauren Gilbert explaining the plan.

“Based on the above instances of your demonstrated misconduct and/or disregard for University and Law School policies, the Law School believes that your termination from employment with the University is warranted,” Armstrong wrote in the Aug. 27 letter.

According to the July termination letter, Gilbert's dismissal was due to an altercation in which she grabbed a security guard in 2010 and more recent incidents, including denying rumors of a campus shooting. This week's letter also cites an “inappropriate relationship” with a female student.

The letter came about two weeks after Gilbert filed suit against the law school in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, Florida, claiming she was treated like an at-large employee rather than a tenured professor.

The university had relied on procedures in the personnel handbook in her dismissal, but Gilbert claims that in the 2021-2022 edition of the law school handbook, the ABA-required policy regarding academic freedom and tenure states that tenured faculty “may only be dismissed for good cause.”

In the event of a dispute, the lawsuit says the faculty member is entitled to “the informal and formal procedures” established by the now-outdated Association of American Law Schools, as well as benefits and salary during the process. This includes a hearing before tenured colleagues, the lawsuit says.

According to the lawsuit, Gilbert was fired immediately in July without following these procedures.

The July letter stated that the university reserves the right to “terminate an employee without notice and for any or no reason” for violations of safety regulations and that in such cases the faculty handbook would prevail.

Now, Gilbert's salary and benefits have been renewed while procedures outlined in the law school handbook are completed, the Aug. 27 letter said. Armstrong also invited Gilbert, who was given tenure in 2009, to a Sept. 27 meeting to discuss issues related to her future employment.

If no resolution or agreement is reached at that meeting or before, a formal hearing with their tenured colleagues will follow, “but I expect that will not take place before November,” David Frakt, Gilbert's attorney specializing in academic cases, wrote in an email to the ABA Journal.

“I view the university's complete capitulation to our demands as an implicit admission that its position that a tenured professor could be treated like an on-call employee was legally untenable,” Frakt wrote.

According to Armstrong's letter, Gilbert will not return to the St. Thomas University campus, including the law school. She previously taught contract law, constitutional law and family law, and classes began on August 19.

“The university values ​​tenure as an academic function for teaching and academic freedom,” said a university statement emailed to the Journal. “However, tenure is not a shield for inappropriate behavior that endangers the community and/or our students.”