WELCOME BACK: Lawyers battle it out, settle some cases during break

Former Associate Management Professor Rosalie Tung was denied tenure in 1985, and eventually filed discrimination charges with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Although the EEOC investigation was never completed, the professor took her fight as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. As part of the settlement, which was reached in June and announced in July, neither side is admitting any fault or liability in Tung's tenure denial. The University has acknowleged, however, that her tenure hearings "did not result in an adequate review of Professor Tung's performance, qualifications, and credentials," according to a statement agreed to by both parties. The University accepted a faculty grievance panel's finding that "certain procedural irregularities" had occurred that resulted in a "flawed review" of Tung's qualifications. But General Counsel Shelley Green said last month that acknowledging the "irregularities" is not an admission of guilt, because they may have been unintentional. Both sides refuse to say whether Tung will receive compensation for settling, and have agreed to keep any monetary portion of the settlement confidential. Tung, who is Asian, is now a full professor with tenure in the Business Administration Deparment at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. -- Michael Sirolly A former Veterinary School professor who filed a sex discrimination case against the University will return to the Vet School, under the terms of an out-of-court settlement announced this week. Veterinary cancer researcher Ann Jeglum -- forced out of her Vet School office in February 1990 following two tenure denials -- will return as an adjunct professor, according to Assistant General Counsel Elizabeth O'Brien. O'Brien said that both Jeglum and the University have agreed to keep discuss other terms of the settlement confidential, and that neither side is admitting any wrongdoing or liabilty. Jeglum was denied tenure in 1987 and 1989. She filed suit against the University in December, after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that her charges of sexual discrimination might have merit. The lawsuit claimed that sexual discrimination prevented her from receiving tenure or earning wages comparable to men in her department. Jeglum sought lost wages, benefits and expenses for both the alleged tenure denial and wage discrimination. She also demanded tenure retroactive to 1989, the time of her tenure denial. O'Brien said that Jeglum will not receive tenure and that the adjunct professorship is not a tenure-track position. -- Michael Sirolly A Veterinary School professor has filed notice that he plans to sue the University, claiming sanctions imposed on him by Vet School Dean Edwin Andrews irreparably damaged his research. A lawsuit would be the latest in Vet School Microbiology Professor Jorge Ferrer's protests against the research suspension, which began after 130 people were inadvertently exposed to sheep he infected with a leukemia-causing virus. In the April 1990 incident, Ferrer failed to separate 14 lambs innoculated with the cancer-causing HTLV-1 virus from the rest of the flock at the University's New Bolton Center, located in Chester County. Of those exposed, 31 have since been tested for the virus, which is similar to the HIV AIDS virus, and can only be transmitted through sexual contact, blood transfusions, breast milk or infected needles. All of the tests were negative. The summons, filed against the University, Andrews, Provost Michael Aiken, Vice Provost for Research Barry Cooperman and Vet School Associate Dean Jeffrey Roberts, claims officials wrongfully suspended Ferrer, defamed him and broke his employment contract. The punishment prevented Ferrer from conducting animal research and from conducting or supervising studies of the virus. The sanctions were imposed in February 1991 and ended in June. After the sanctions were imposed, faculty committees twice recommended that the punishment be lifted. Aiken rejected the recommendations both times. General Counsel Shelley Green said in July that University lawyers are aware of the summons notice, which was filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on June 22. -- Michael Sirolly A former Medical School professor has sued the University for not granting him tenure, claiming a supervisor intentionally tricked him out of taking a better job elsewhere to keep his research funding at the University. Michael White claims that Perry Molinoff, chairperson of the Pharmacology Department, teased him with offers of tenure to prevent him from taking a better paying job at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Lawyers for the University call White's suit "frivolous." In court papers, they say White's attack on Molinoff is "unfair" because Molinoff supported his tenure application "at every level of the University." The University says that despite Molinoff's support, the provost's office rejected White's tenure bid mainly because White "had yet to make the kinds of scientific contributions expected of those promoted to tenure." White, a former assistant professor of pharmacology, filed suit in state court in Montgomery County earlier this summer. He claims the University's actions have cost him about about $174,000. White says he made an unsuccessful bid for tenure here instead of accepting the Mayo Clinic job. Meanwhile, he claims, the University collected $200,000 in overhead costs on White's $1.7 million research grant from the National Institutes of Health. The suit claims Molinoff deliberately gave White bad advice while preparing the tenure file, and then misled him into thinking his tenure file was fine. The University, however, portrays Molinoff in court papers as White's chief advocate, "who plead Dr. White's case over and over again in an effort to convince the many who questioned Dr. White's qualifications." White, who specializes in molecular biology, now works in the Physiology Department at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. -- Scott Calvert and Michael Sirolly