Here's an example of how a single letter--of dubious veracity--written by a single disgruntled student--encouraged by administrators with suspect motives--can cost a professor his job.

One day after receiving a positive annual review, Oregon State psychology professor Bob Uttl was sacked. The smoking gun? A four-page letter of complaint written by a former student who dropped his course after eight weeks. Uttl, who faces deportation now that he is no longer employed, says he is being discriminated against and has filed a $1.2 million lawsuit against the now-graduated Jennifer Krebs for placing what he claims is a "defamatory" letter in his personnel file. Krebs' letter accused Uttl of discriminating against women, of speaking in "broken English" (he has Czech and Canadian citizenship), and of engaging in "atrociously unprofessional acts."

Punchline: the official reason for the fourth-year assistant professor's termination was lack of collegiality: according to his dean, "he has not shown himself to be a good citizen of the department or the university." Uttl is in good company: in recent months, Brooklyn College history professor KC Johnson, Brooklyn College philosophy professor Michael Cholbi, and Simpson College English professor Dan Bauer have all lost their jobs for their alleged uncollegiality.

UPDATE: This story reports that the trouble between Krebs and Uttl began when Krebs worked together with another student on an assignment they were supposed to do on their own. When he confronted them and asked them to do the assignment over, Krebs dropped the class.

In other words, Krebs got caught cheating. Uttl seems to have offered to let her off lightly--but instead she dropped the course and pursued a vendetta.

Uttl's lawsuit grows out of his conviction that Krebs wrote her letter in a deliberate attempt to destroy his career. Krebs' lawyer claims that Krebs' comments are constitutionally protected, since they are statements of opinion.

The real issue here seems to be why Oregon State gave such weight to what appears to be one outlying negative evaluation whose motivations look cloudy at best.

Unfortunately, "collegiality," whatever merits it might have as one factor in granting tenure, has become a weapon, and a powerful one, often--as in the cases cited here--trumping the traditional values of teaching and scholarship.

However, the problem isn't the concept, it's the way all such concepts have been pirated, so that peripheral values and activities are now often the major (and sometimes the only) factors used by faculty. We have one department where, for thirty years, a few senior faculty have systematically gotten rid of every promising junior hire. In the last case "collegiality" was cited, but before we had the concept, they managed just fine.

Alas, they always will. And as more and more basic teaching is done by "adjunct" faculty, the situation will only get worse.

I don't understand any of this.

Why was this professor fired on the basis of one student complaint, and only a day after receiving a positive review? There must be more to this story, someone or some group must have been out to get him.

And why is the professor attempting to sue the student? A 1.2 million dollar lawsuit against an individual student seems absurd. Students say a lot of things about professors, some of it quite nasty and unfair (see, eg, the website www.myprofessorsucks.com). Some of it is just typical venting, some of it probably does cross the line and could be considered defamatory if the professor in question chose to pursue the matter in court. But should professors start suing students for defamatory comments? What a can of worms this would open! And as for the charge of discrimination, the student is not in a position to discriminate against the professor. It is not the student who fired the professor, it is someone in a position of real power who decided to use the student's complaints as a reason/justification for firing the professor. So why doesn't the professor go after those who actually fired him instead of going after the student?

I am certainly open to the possibility that the student's complaints are groundless/trumped up/ unjust/unfair. But then, the professor's decision to go after the student does give me pause. Makes me wonder if there mightn't be something behind the charge of "atrociously unprofessional acts" (though, at the same time, the "atrociously" makes me suspicious of this student's motives/perspective).

In any case, I doubt he will get very far with his suit, and I have to wonder what kind of legal advice he is getting.

If I wrote a letter falsely accusing an ex-boss of discriminating against men, committing "atrociously unprofessional acts," being generally incompetent or "engaging in misconduct," and my false claims cost him his job or his reputation, then I could expect to end up on the wrong side of a lawsuit, too. I don't see any reason why college students, let alone ex-students, should be exempt from the same laws that apply to the rest of us.

Even worse, in my view, was Krebs's lawyer's weenie defense: "The statements ... are statements of opinion and, as such, are constitutionally protected." Oh, please. If that argument had any merit, no plaintiff would ever succeed in a defamation action. I can just hear it now: "Gee, Your Honor, when I falsely accused the plaintiff of molesting children, I was only stating my 'opinion,' which I had based on ... absolutely nothing."

I know a little bit about OSU. Here is reality. The campus, like most in Oregon, is an anarchist and leftist activist hot bed. Student complaints, if they are worded in the accepted left way, are given huge weight. I was in a class there when a literal army of storm trooper types just walked in, moved the prof out of the way, and started taking a survey of his teaching and methods. This gang wanted to hear only what they wanted to hear. Nobody said anything but me, and I'm a vet who is always ready to brawl, and I told them they were Nazi storm troopers and the teacher was great. They demanded my name and I gave it to them and spelled it for them. When I asked for theirs they refused. They then passed out complaint cards they wanted signed. Nobody that I know of signed them.

This is how they "get" a teacher they want to get. The guy was gone by next semester. I have no idea what his ideology was because he was teaching memonics. OSU is one sorry place and teen age students do not know how to stand up to the mid twenties and early thirties radical men and women when confronted. And trust me, race is a factor. The storm troopers included the usual menacing blacks and tatooed hispanics who glared at the students through dark glasses.

University life is not frat houses and drunken parties any more.

BTW, I believe the suit against the student is designed to "open the door" to University liability. They will prove her complete lack of a case, the fact that he caught her cheating, and then use that to hit the University for huge damages. That's how THAT game is played. OSU is out at least 5mil.

"They will prove her complete lack of a case"? Sorry, but this is not how it works, not at all how the game is played. It is the professor who has initiated a law suit and it is he who must prove that he has a case. He is the plaintiff. The student is the defendant.

In a civil suit, the defendant (in this case the student) does not claim to have a case but rather claims that the plaintiff (in this case the professor) does _not_ have a case. The burden of proof lies with the plaintiff. And in defamation suits, the bar is set very high (and rightly so, since defamation law and First Amendment rights are at odds).

This professor needs a new lawyer.

C'mon, Invisible, let's not pick nits. Of course the initial burden of proof will be on the plaintiff, as in any other civil case, but there's only so much he has to show before a prima facie case has been made, after which the burden will indeed shift to the defendant to show, on a preponderance of evidence, that she is not liable for defamation. The information contained in Erin's post and the linked story, if true, would make that prima facie case pretty nicely. If there's more to the story, it's up to the defendant to show that; it's not up to the plaintiff to shoot down every conceivable defense that might possibly be raised in the future.

I don't think I'm picking nits (now why does that sound so much more distasteful than "nitpicky"?) to point out that the burden of proof lies with the plaintiff and to emphasize that defamation suits are difficult to win.

Kreb's lawyer may or may not be a weenie, but the fact is, opinion is the standard defense against defamation charges. The law states that matters of opinion are not defamatory (there are a few exceptions to this, of course, there always are, but I doubt that this case would fall under the exceptions). In order to be defamation, it has to be untrue, that is, untrue at the level of fact.

If Kreb's letter only says things like, "the professor was unprofessional," "he interrupted our conversations," "he graded too hard," and so on, then that can easily be presented as matter of opinion. If it says he dropped his trousers and mooned the class when he didn't in fact do so, then we're talking defamation.

You're assuming that the case will go to trial. I wouldn't count on it. Some courts would take a rather dim view of a professor trying to sue a student for 1.2 million dollars, for some judges, that would scream "nuisance lawsuit."

The so-called "opinion" defense is just peachy if the challenged "opinion" contains no factual assertions that can be proven or disproven. If Krebs's lawyer were to read this exchange and sue me for calling him a "weenie," he'd lose handily, but not because it's my "opinion" that he is a weenie; maybe it's not my honest-to-God opinion of him, but I just felt like dissing him anyway. No, he'd lose because there is no way to prove what is/isn't a "weenie," ergo, he would have no way of proving that my assertion was untrue.

On the other hand, if I accused Krebs's lawyer of professional misconduct, as Krebs appears to have done to Uttl, there would be no "opinion" defense. In that case, I'd better be able to back up the allegation; I couldn't just fall back on some lame defense like "gee, it's only my opinion." That weenie defense almost works when the plaintiff is a public figure or the topic of discussion a matter of public interest, but neither of those were the case here.

As to your example, I agree that Krebs's letter would probably not be actionable if it had only said "the professor was unprofessional," "he interrupted our conversations," and "he graded too hard." Then again, I rather doubt that such vague, content-free allegations would have gotten him fired in the first place.

And please, will everyone please stop talking about the incident as a case of a professor suing a "student?" Jennifer Krebs is not a student now, nor was she a student at the time she wrote the letter in question.