Leetaru v. Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of Ill.

• Decision Date: 16 April 2015
• Docket Number: No. 117485.,117485.
• Parties: Kalev LEETARU, Appellant, v. The BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS et al., Appellees.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

32 N.E.3d 583

Kalev LEETARU, Appellant

v.The BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS et al., Appellees.

No. 117485.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 16, 2015.

Rehearing Denied May 26, 2015.

James A. Martinkus, of Erwin, Martinkus & Cole, Ltd., of Champaign, for appellant.

William J. Brinkmann and Kenneth D. Reifsteck, of Thomas, Mamer & Haughey, LLP, of Champaign, for appellees.

OPINION

Justice KARMEIER

delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Kalev Leetaru, a graduate student at and former employee of the University of Illinois, brought this action in the circuit court of Champaign County to enjoin the Board of Trustees (Board) of the University of Illinois (University) and Howard Guenther, one of its associate vice chancellors, from taking further action in connection with an investigation they are pursuing against him, in his status as a student, regarding allegations that he engaged in misconduct which violated the University's “ Policy and Procedures on Academic Integrity in Research and Publication.” Leetaru seeks to halt the proceedings on the grounds that in conducting their investigation, defendants have failed to comply with the University's rules and regulations governing discipline of students and that defendants' actions thereby exceeded their lawful authority, are arbitrary, and have resulted in a gross injustice and deprived him of due process.

¶ 2 Defendants moved to dismiss pursuant to section 2–619(a)(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure

(735 ILCS 5/2–619(a)(1) (West 2012)), claiming that exclusive jurisdiction over this matter lay in the Court of Claims. The circuit court agreed and dismissed Leetaru's cause of action for lack of jurisdiction. The appellate court affirmed. 2014 IL App (4th) 130465, 378 Ill.Dec. 934, 5 N.E.3d 314

. We granted Leetaru's petition for leave to appeal. Ill. S.Ct. R. 315 (eff. July 1, 2013). For the reasons that follow, we now reverse and remand to the circuit court for further proceedings.

¶ 3 BACKGROUND

¶ 4 Where, as here, a cause of action is challenged through a motion to dismiss under section 2–619 of the Code of Civil Procedure

, all well-pleaded facts in the complaint must be accepted as true and all reasonable inferences that may arise from those facts must be drawn in favor of the nonmoving party. Bjork v. O'Meara, 2013 IL 114044, ¶ 21, 369 Ill.Dec. 313, 986 N.E.2d 626. According to Leetaru's complaint, he is a doctoral student in the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science and a former employee of the University's Cline Center for Democracy (Cline Center or the Center), where he held the title of Coordinator of Research and Information Technology.

¶ 5 In January of 2011, Leetaru was notified by the director of the Cline Center, Peter Nardulli, that his employment there would cease the following January “for budgetary and performance issues.” The following November, approximately six weeks before his job was scheduled to end, Leetaru was placed on administrative leave by the director. The formal basis given for that decision was that Leetaru had failed to disclose the location of data belonging to the Cline Center and had used the Center's data without authorization. The director told Leetaru, however, that the real purpose for his actions was to suspend Leetaru's research program, cause Leetaru's research funding to be rescinded, provide the director and the Center with unrestricted access to Leetaru's research in order to further the director's own research and publication activities, and to keep Leetaru from conducting research which the director considered to be in competition with the work of the Center.

¶ 6 Once Leetaru was placed on administrative leave, a dean at the University barred him from his office and blocked his access to all personal and professional documents and objects he kept there, including personal computers, hard drives, USB drives, multiple CD–ROMs of data and paper folders. Among these items, which were seized and boxed by the University, were numerous documents and data related to Leetaru's graduate studies, including his doctoral research and dissertation materials. Leetaru also lost access to certain supercomputing sites around the country.

¶ 7 On December 6, 2011, Leetaru received written notice of the charges which were the predicate for his having been placed on leave from his job. While those charges were pending, but after the January termination date for Leetaru's employment with the Cline Center had passed, the Center's director wrote to University Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Howard Guenther to express his continuing concerns regarding Leetaru's actions as a Center employee, specifically, “misappropriation of data from a long term project that has been directed, funded and operated” by the Center.

¶ 8 Shortly thereafter, on February 8, 2012, Guenther sent notice to Leetaru in Leetaru's status as a graduate student, that his office had received a formal research misconduct complaint alleging that Leetaru was responsible for the unauthorized removal of a substantial number of articles from a University-affiliated repository and had failed and refused to disclose the location of the missing information or return the relevant files despite being asked to do so repeatedly. Although the written notice did not identify the source of the complaint, Guenther advised Leetaru that the complaint had been made by the Cline Center's director.

¶ 9 The University has promulgated and published policies, rules and regulations governing the investigation and discipline of graduate students. These are set out in the “University of Illinois Policy and Procedures on Academic Integrity in Research and Publication” (Policy and Procedures) and the bylaws of the “Graduate College Handbook” (Bylaws), which is “the administrative home of students admitted to graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.” Both documents were appended to Leetaru's complaint and incorporated therein.

¶ 10 The Bylaws, along with the state statutes establishing the University, define such matters as how the Graduate College is organized and how it conducts its affairs. With respect to academic integrity, the Bylaws specify that “[a]ll charges of academic integrity infractions with respect to organized research activities against students in the Graduate College will be dealt with as prescribed in the [Policy and Procedures],” subject to certain exceptions. The Policy and Procedures, in turn, “incorporate[ ] federal regulations and guidelines of the U.S. Public Health Service” and “prescribe[ ] procedures for impartial fact-finding and fair adjudication of allegations of academic and Research Misconduct.”

¶ 11 The process mandated by the Policy and Procedures contains three stages, “Assessment,” “Inquiry” and “Investigation.” In stage one, assessment, a “Unit Executive Officer” (UEO) and a “Research Integrity Officer” (RIO) are required to make an initial assessment as to whether the complaint against a student falls within the definition of “Research Misconduct” as set forth in the Policy and Procedures, whether the complaint is credible and whether it is sufficiently specific to enable potential evidence supporting the complaint to be identified. The Policy and Procedures provide that “[t]he [a]ssessment period should be brief, preferably concluded within 15 calendar days.”

¶ 12 Unless it is determined that a complaint clearly falls outside the scope of the Policy and Procedures, the complaint and assessment findings must be brought to the attention of the relevant dean. Within 15 days of having a complaint brought to his or her attention, the dean is required to decide whether sufficient evidence exists to warrant moving to the next stage, inquiry. If the dean decides that an inquiry should be conducted, the dean must then appoint an inquiry team comprised of two qualified, unbiased individuals with no potential or actual conflicts of interest in the matter. When feasible, these are to be tenured faculty members, one for the unit in which the conduct in question occurred and the second from elsewhere in the University. The dean may also appoint a third faculty member or academic professional to the team. In addition, the Bylaws of the Graduate College call for the Graduate College's dean to appoint to the inquiry team a qualified, unbiased graduate student who has no conflict of interest.

¶ 13 The RIO, after consultation with the dean and the UEO, is required to prepare a charge for the inquiry team which (1) sets forth the time for completion of the inquiry; (2) describes the allegations against the student; (3) explains that the purpose of the inquiry is to make an initial review of the evidence and determine whether an investigation is warranted; (4) sets forth the two criteria which must be met in order to warrant an investigation, namely, that (a) there is a reasonable basis to conclude that the complaint falls within the definition of research misconduct and is “within the jurisdictional criteria” of the Policy and Procedures and (b) that it may have substance; and (5) informs the inquiry team members that they are responsible for preparing or directing the preparation of a written report of the inquiry.

¶ 14 Before the inquiry begins, the RIO is required to make a good faith effort to notify the student, in writing, that the inquiry is being undertaken. Once the inquiry team has been selected, the RIO must send the student a letter setting forth the allegations, including a copy of the Policy and Procedures. The letter must advise the student of various rights he or she has and admonish the student that failure to provide research records on request may be considered evidence that research misconduct occurred. Sequestration provisions also take effect. The RIO, in consultation with counsel for the University, is required to “undertake reasonable and practical steps to secure all research...