Snitow v. Rutgers University
| Decision Date | 17 March 1986 |
| Parties | , 33 Ed. Law Rep. 333 Dr. Ann Barr SNITOW, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
John J. Peirano, Jr., for appellant (Carpenter, Bennett & Morrissey, attorneys; Edward F. Ryan of counsel; Linda B. Celauro on brief.
Arnold Shep Cohen, for respondent (Oxfeld, Cohen & Blunda, attorneys).
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
O'HERN, J.
The central issue in this appeal concerns the point at which a party may seek to be relieved of a contractual agreement to grieve a dispute over the terms and conditions of public employment and pursue a claim for relief in a court of law. The case arises in the context of a university professor challenging the legality and fairness of a tenure-retention decision. The teacher asserts that recourse to the grievance provisions of her contract would be futile so as to warrant the fashioning of a judicial remedy directing the method in which the university should evaluate her qualifications for tenure. We find that her judicial challenge to the university's method of determining tenure is premature and does not demonstrate the futility of the contractual grievance process.
Dr. Ann Barr Snitow has been an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University for many years. In accordance with the University's procedures, she was to be considered for reappointment and promotion in the Fall of 1981. That reappointment would have brought with it tenure.
The promotion and tenure process at Rutgers consists of evaluations by various committees and university officials. The process is multi-leveled and requires the review to commence with a recommendation by the tenured faculty at or above the proposed rank in the candidate's department, including the views of the department chair. The recommendation is forwarded to the dean of the college (here the School of Arts and Sciences). That dean consults with and receives the recommendation of that college's Appointments and Promotions Committee. When the evaluation is completed, the dean forwards the packet to the Office of the Provost or the Executive Vice President of the University, whichever applies, at which point a university-wide "appropriate peer group" of the Section (here the English Department) evaluates the candidate's credentials and submits its recommendation to the Office of the Executive Vice President. These materials are then furnished to the Promotion Review Committee, which is appointed by the President of the University to consider such personnel actions. This body (referred to as the "Summit") submits recommendations to the President. After considering all of the evidence from these various sources, the President makes a final recommendation to the Board of Governors of the University.
In the Fall of 1981, respondent was considered for promotion to the rank of Associate Professor and to be awarded tenure in accordance with these procedures. The English Department, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the English Section recommended Professor Snitow for promotion with tenure. The Committee on Appointments and the University's Promotion Review Committee, however, recommended against promotion and tenure.
Upon notification of the adverse decisions, Professor Snitow filed a grievance against the decisions of the latter two committees. The agreement between Rutgers University and the Rutgers Council of the American Association of University Professors Chapters (hereinafter the "Agreement") provides a procedure to resolve disputes that arise in the course of the administration of this progressive evaluation toward teacher tenure.
In her grievance proceeding plaintiff alleged various discrepancies. The first concerned an early article of hers included in her promotion package; she contended that this article did not reflect her more recent interests and abilities and should not have been included in the package. The Grievance Committee agreed with her on this point and found that the Department had caused her to be harmed by its careless method in assembling the promotion package. In addition, Professor Snitow alleged that the Appointments and Promotions Committee had destroyed all notes and records of its deliberations and otherwise had acted arbitrarily in handling her matter. Finally, and most importantly for this disposition, she alleged prejudice on the part of a member of the Promotion Review Committee. This prejudice was allegedly based on an earlier article of the member espousing the view that a program of women's studies did not belong in the organization and aims of an English department. Dr. Snitow, the Grievance Committee found, had an "active commitment * * * to * * * 'Women's Studies.' " The Committee accepted plaintiff's allegations that the professor's article evidenced a frame of mind that is prejudiced towards women's studies; on that basis the Committee found evidence of prejudice on the part of the professor as well as the Promotion Review Committee because of the professor's failure to recuse himself from its deliberation. 1 In its conclusion, the Grievance Committee sustained the allegations of arbitrary conduct on the part of the Promotion Review Committee. Its conclusion recited:
The Committee directs that the case be remanded to the Department as prescribed in the AAUP-Rutgers University Contract for a fresh promotion review process and that the new review be conducted (a) with an A & P committee made up of faculty members who did not participate in the review leading to this grievance[,] and (b) with voting members of the PRC different from those who took part in the review leading to the grievance.
The Grievance Committee's Report and Recommendations were rendered on June 13, 1983.
On August 24, 1983, Rutgers informed Professor Snitow that appropriate instructions would be provided to all applicable levels of review and the Dean would be directed to remove from the Appointments and Promotions Committee any member who previously reviewed her promotion packet. In addition, she was advised that if this review were positive her promotion and tenure would be effective retroactively to July 1, 1982. Thereafter, the University undertook the reprocessing of Professor Snitow's promotion application, resubmitting her promotion packet to the Department of English. The department then recommended plaintiff only by a tie vote. She was aggrieved because the individual professor specifically identified as demonstrating prejudice participated in the deliberations of the English Department and opposed her application.
Notwithstanding that this is but the first of the several steps in the review process, the plaintiff filed this complaint in the Superior Court on November 28, 1983. Professor Snitow's complaint stated that she
had neither anticipated nor expected that defendant University would permit [the tainted professor] to participate in any further consideration of her candidacy. Plaintiff had originally suggested to the University that a more appropriate resolution would be a reference to an "ad-hoc" committee of outside scholars of repute and authority in plaintiff's specialty and discipline.
In her complaint, plaintiff also alleged that it would be impossible to undo the damage done by this latest violation of her rights. She asked the court to set aside the determination of the English Department and direct "a remand to an ad-hoc committee to consider plaintiff's reappointment and promotion." The record is somewhat difficult to trace thereafter because Professor Snitow's case was consolidated for argument and disposition with the claim of another university professor and there were the inevitable cross-references between the two cases in the course of the colloquy between court and counsel. In its summary disposition of this matter, the trial court ordered that
the parties are directed to attempt to agree on an ad hoc committee selected from within the appropriate personnel of Rutgers University to make a recommendation for promotion and reappointment which recommendation shall be in lieu of any recommendation heretofore made by any individual or group identified as prejudiced or tainted by the report of the grievance committee.
On appeal, the Appellate Division, in an unreported opinion, affirmed the decision of the trial court except to modify it to provide that the mandated ad hoc committee would function only at the department, the Appointments and Promotions Committee, and the Promotion Review Committee levels. What this effectively means is that in addition to the ad hoc committee, only the Section and the offices of the Dean and the Executive Vice President would continue to be involved in developing a recommendation for the University President and the Board of Governors. We granted the University's petition for certification to review this decision. 101 N.J. 288, 501 A.2d 950 (1985).
Because of the disposition we make, we do not address the issues of academic freedom that are implicated by a court's substitution of its judgment for that of a teaching university as to the university's method of evaluating tenure. "[I]n a university setting, especially where questions of faculty tenure are involved, [it is] a court's duty to refrain from inadvertently setting up its own standard * * *." Kumar v. Board of Trustees, 774 F.2d 1, 15 (1st Cir.1985) (Campbell, C.J., concurring). The concept of "[a]cademic freedom, though...
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