A MOCKERY Of Justice at the University of New Mexico
It began, unlike most epic love stories featuring two cosmically intertwined souls rediscovering their connection from some past life, in the printer room of the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management.
It ended with a graduate student attempting to blackmail a professor into continuing their flirtatious banter, a sexual harassment investigation that treated the blackmailer as a victim, and, ultimately, a one-year unpaid suspension for the professor.
The professor made mistakes. But the professor and the student never slept together. She never worked for him, and she never took one of his classes. They never even met in person, except for their initial five-minute introduction. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has taken the professor’s case, and it is urging the university to reverse course.
“The university reached conclusions that defied reason and were completely at odds with all of the established facts of the case,” attorney Samantha Harris, a vice president of FIRE, said. Professor Flor was trying to end their correspondence. But when he reported her extortion efforts to the university as harassment, they found him responsible for harassment, in a decision that defies all of the facts of the case (which are very clear and incontrovertible, because the entirety of their communications took place over email and text).
As of now, Flor has been suspended for a year without pay, and is prohibited by the university’s “outside work” policy from working more than 39 days at any other job. It is very difficult to fire a tenured professor, so by depriving Flor of the ability to support himself during his suspension, it seems that UNM is trying to force him out instead. ..Oh, and did I mention all of this happened without so much as a hearing or an opportunity for professor Flor to confront his accuser in any way?
“FIRE will not rest until Professor Flor gets some justice in this egregious case,” says Harris.
reason.com– Robby Soave thefire.org-Samantha Harris
