U of MICHIGAN Plans To Stop Paying Anyone Accused Of ‘Sexual & Gender-Based Misconduct’
Its press release doesn’t mention it, but the Faculty Senate noticed. The University of Michigan is proposing to suspend faculty and staff without pay if they are the subject of a “sexual and gender-based misconduct” investigation, under a draft “umbrella policy” released last month. Comments are due Nov. 22.
None of the PR materials made public by the university mentions the suspension-without-pay proposal. “Considering that there is now a button for reporting sexual misconduct right next to the Search box on the Umich.edu website, there could easily be a lot of spurious investigations started, and a lot of faculty who will suffer damage from this new policy.”
An email from Faculty Senate leaders forwarded to The College Fix warns faculty that the proposed policy would “give the Office of Institutional Equity (OIE) broad discretion to implement sanctions, such as suspension without pay, at the outset of an investigation of a complaint.” Sexual and gender-based misconduct can include speech protected by the First Amendment. Employees would be “subject to significantly less due process protections than students” under the proposal; a “single investigator” would both lead the investigation and render the decision; OIE could implement suspension without pay “without prior notice” to the subject; and the draft policy is not clear whether the immediate penalty applies to tenured faculty.
thecollegefix-Greg Piper
