Riverside Court Rules in Favor of La Sierra University in Faculty Lawsuit
by
By AT News Team, March 6, 2014
In the lawsuit involving the forced resignations of three faculty members at La Sierra University (LSU), the court on Wednesday (March 5) issued a summary judgment in favor of the North American Division (NAD) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the denomination's Pacific Union Conference and LSU. The university released a statement, stating that the school “respects the court’s decision that all causes of action brought in the lawsuit … were without legal merit.”
The three former faculty involved are Dr. Jeffry Kaatz who was vice president of development, Dr. James Beach who was dean of the College Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Gary Bradley who was professor of biology. The three were forced to resign in June of 2011 after a recorded conversation surfaced in which the three were speaking with LSU board member Lenny Darnell, NAD president Dan Jackson and NAD vice president Larry Blackmer.
Darnell intentionally recorded a conversation regarding meetings at LSU on the topic of evolution in biology classes. However, Darnell inadvertently also recorded a later conversation that was intended to be off the record.
In June 2011 Spectrum, the journal of the largest organization of Adventist academics, reported that the recording included “foul language, references to alcohol consumption and unflattering comments being made about board members, administrators and church leaders.” Kaatz, Beach, and Bradley were told they could resign or a transcript of the conversation would be shared with the LSU board.
At the time of the resignations, LSU emphasized that the motivation for action was not the issues related to how to teach about evolution. Despite this statement, the evolution issue was an important aspect of the court’s ruling, a source has told Adventist Today.
This source also reported that the court felt that it would be a religious entanglement prohibited by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution for it to get into questions of religious freedom and the denomination’s theological issues, including the teaching evolution. “The judge could not understand why anyone would object to teaching evolution, but he said a church can teach anything they think is a core value and it is protected by free speech.”
The defense attorneys for the denomination argued that the Adventist Church is hierarchical in structure and the leaders can reach down to the university and force a resignation because, as the judge pointed out, “The Church created La Sierra University,” calling the school “flat out a church institution.” He concluded that because the NAD has every right to tell LSU how it can or cannot operate, the school did not act improperly and ecclesiastical decisions cannot be reviewed by a secular court.
Adventist Today was told that the summary judgment means the case is dead unless the parties appeal. The source guessed the case would likely be appealed because an estimated quarter of a million dollars has already been spent in preparation.
The LSU press release in response to the court ruling concluded, “This has been a difficult three-year period for the university and the plaintiffs. Now is a time when the university can reflect on how it can build a stronger community and heal the wounds that have resulted from these issues.”
If I understand this decision correctly it essentially means that this court stepped aside to avoid entanglement with religious liberty issues…in a word the court ignored what staff and faculty consider to be certain employment protections in the faculty handbook leaving only a thin shield…if a "theological core value" is at stake…this court would allow church leadership to bypass the president and the board of trustees (its normal administrative structures) in an Adventist institution to discipline its employees. This implies that it is a myth that La Sierra University is an autonomous education institution as required by WASC accreditation. But when you think about it hasn't this always been true. LSU markets to the public that it is an SDA institution with an ambition to teach the doctrines and experiences of the church which is fundamentally hierarchical in authority (when that option benefits the church). When Dan Jackson and Larry Blackmer appeared before the LSU faculty in 2011 they presented that their authority from the North American Division stopped at the Pacific Union Conference and the president of PUC then communicated to the president of LSU through its board chairman Recardo Graham. But this summary judgment allowed a longer reach all the way from the General Conference to LSU employees, bypassing the president of LSU and the board of trustees.
That seems to me to be a tryable test for a jury because of the fact that LSU is a hybrid religious institution accepting government funding through secular accreditation and many students are non-Adventist. Part of the accreditation requires a bon-fide faculty handbook with certain protections in place. Why weren't the LSU3 told on Friday that they were in trouble and they had the weekend to consult with legal counsel concerning different options? Graham had a lawyer by his side…why not give the same privileged to the faculty at LSU?
Cheers
tjoe
I don't think the faculty appointments of these gentlemen was at issue. So I'm not certain that the faculty handbook applied. Are you? They didn't ask for attorneys. They were told that they could either resign or have the facts laid out before the Board. They chose to resign. What sinister forces prevented these highly educated, mature adults from saying, "Thanks, but I'm not prepared to make a snap decision right now. I need to think about it over the weekend and consult with a lawyer."?
These weren't criminal charges. But even people charged with crimes don't have to be told of the right or need to consult with legal counsel. The so-called Miranda warning only applies to questioning of individuals who are "in custody,"as that term has been defined by the courts.
It's really too bad that the conversations were recorded and came to light. But they were and they did. In my opinion, the Church and University had no choice but to take the action they did, if they were to preserve any credibility with church members anywhere right of the far Left.
Until we read the transcript of the Court's ruling, or have a credible summation of it, we need to be careful about accepting at face value the spin that interested observers put on the Court's findings and conclusions of law.
Would the decision rendered here serve as a precedent for the GC to go to court against those Conferences who have ordained women contrary to the hierarchical authority of the SDA Church, in as much as the Conferences are a part of the SDA organization, and not independent??
Yes, someone can have such an idea, nominally those who are obsessed with perpetuating discrimination of women in our church.
Nathan I was there and heard the entire summary judgment. Upon opening the judge said he would not listen to any summations from either side…because he said he had already made up his mind and relied heavily on his research attorney who in a large measure wrote his decision (she was sitting on the dependent side of the court)….later he allowed a little rebuttable evidence…one aspect was important….he thought that the transcript had been released to the public posted by Spectrum…that was important since it was not common knowledge until it entered the public domain…and it was not released by Spectrum…it's sourcing largely came from the opposing conservative side…eventually the question became mote since the transcript was available fairly widely. The judge knew a lot about the evidence…he was sympathetic to two main issues, maybe three. (1) he expects the case to go to appeal and looks forward to reading the appeal court's determination. (2) he established distance to avoid getting entangled in the religious affairs of the church (evolution was not that important). (3) he placed great emphasis on allowing church leadership to protect the theological core values…it is their responsibility to see that the church fulfills it's obligations to the common interest of believers.
It will be interesting to read the summary judgment to see if the "I recommend" from the research attorney are removed….will the summary retain these recommendations so you can read the internal logic…assuming the decision could have been redirected by a different fact pattern.
cheers
tjoe
Nathan. I am surprised by your statement "What sinister forces prevented these highly educated professors from saying"….
Let's work on this together…you being a lawyer trained to seek justice…particularly for the downtrodden and others where justice is important in the practice of law…right?
Each faculty has received a phone call from the presidents office. They are not told why…they are part of the administration at LLU…except Bradley who was Dean at an earlier time. Wisbey is denied information as to why these administrators are asked to come to his office…he begins to suspect he is going to be relived of his presidency perhaps. Each faculty arrives alone and told not to talk to anyone else for the time being…then he is immediately confronted by attorney Hanson and the board chairman who is peeved and the faculty after brief discussion is told to sign a prepared letter of resignation…or else his participation in the transcript will be read before the entire board..and they will be fired anyway…why not avoid the embarrassment? Keep in mind that each one asked to see the transcript and this is denied…they don't remember a month ago what was said but it was bad enough to bring the board chairman and attorney to campus and attempting to force resignation or else….all three are wondering does this mean I'm going to be without a job?
Stand back Nathan and put yourself in the shoes of a faculty…imagine that you don't know what protections you have since the attorney standing next to the board chairman constructed the resignation letter…remember if you have matured in Adventist academe you know that academic freedom is not as robust as secular institutions…now would you be as disparaging as you wrote above? Would any lectures in law school remind you as a lawyer that one purpose of being a lawyer is to faithfully represent justice…particularly to individuals who know little about the law.
Well I tried to move you to think about a key element of the law found in justice. I've talked to two of the faculty and standing there alone with the board chairman insisting they sign the resignation..with no time to call Nathan Schilt to ask him for advise…or even family or others who are implicated in "the crime."
Then I'm not sure I could expect to get good lawyer advice from one who did not believe in justice.
cheers
tjoe
I appreciate your perspective from having been at the hearing, Joe. But I don't think you were present at the events that led to the resignation, and I know that your perspective of what went on is very one-sided. Why do highly educated, intelligent, sophisticated people turn into quivering jelly when they are confronted by powerful people for whom they have little regard? The notion that these gentlemen should have been advised of the need to seek legal counsel strikes me as ridiculous. They weren't even being asked to resign their academic positions – only their administrative roles.
Maybe whenever an employee is interviewed by bosses in the workplace regarding possible disciplinary matters, they should be advised of the need to seek legal counsel so they won't do or say anything they might later regret? Is that your position? It seems to me that you are sort of making up a moral map in hindsight, that you believe would have altered the outcome. I don't think it would have. But I think it is grossly unfair of you to create rules and standards in hindsight to condemn those who sincerely wished they did not have to take the action they did.
In my opinion, justice has been served. Case closed.
Hardly case closed as it will be appealed. T Joe makes some good points. Whether the appellate courts agree will be interesting.
Hope they don't just transfer their retirements to their lawyers at the end of this ordeal.
"Justice has been served"? Hardly. Yet again, what is "served" is further concrete evidence that church administration will be happy to spend its members tithe money at the level of hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend the church's right to deny employees due process rights inside the system. The church institution must be defended at all costs (literally); that is much more important that any individual who can be sacificed in the interest of institutional power.
Isn't it remarkable how how experts in the sciences build the walls to prevent access by the unenlightened. But when it comes to other disciplines in which they are not trained, like theology or law, they have no diffidence about weighing in with great confidence and authority.
So please educate me Erv. Precisely what due process rights did these individuals have that were violated? Usually what constitutes due process will be defined in case law, regulation, or statute. I eagerly await citations and references to such authority.
The "due process" referred are the procedures that is that used by major academic institutions in how tenured faculty issues are handled. There are strict guide lines that must be followed. I am happy to educate Nate on this point.
Good decision and maybe the profs will decide there is a better way to spend their nickels.
Maranatha
Well I read some but not all of the legal briefs filed in this case that are available online.
The reportage here does not obviously square with what I read.
It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Greetings Joe Greig:
I hope others that are on this blog understand the significance of what you summarized in your experience at Atlantic Union College. In this context, let's return to this recent NAD, PUC, and LSU decision. While the court ran for cover under the First Amendment…the court did not take into account the nature of a secular/sacred accreditated institution…ignoring entire restraining policies found in the faculty handbook at LSU (obviously avoided by the court). The secular (non-Church) side of the institution was created under the review of the accreditating agency WASC. Accreditation is a benefit to the parents, students, faculty, administrators and the Church…otherwise why go through the extreme measures to qualify for accreditation (hours of work by faculty and administration). Part of this process is in creating proper policies for an academic institution, writing student and faculty handbooks, certain promises made to parents, students and faculty to abide important procedures in the goverance of the institution. Every effort is made to copy what takes place in an accredited secular institutions like UCLA and Stanford, etc. Site visitors come from other universities. In this moment LSU exits the door of a religious institutions (e.g. Bible Colleges) and opens itself to policies and goverances that mimic secular universities. The court decision only looked at the institution as a sacred university. So whether or not you think the three faculty were given "justice" the church's defense abandoned the central place that accreditation should have played through "grievances procedures" established and encouraged in accreditation governance. Rendering the decision, the court recognized that the two North American Division leaders were mad, but one can hardly construct a formal argument that this represents a "theological core value." My arguments obvious favor faculty and university administration because the attributes of learning is a currency of offering young people the excitement of confronting "experiences" head on with the promise of discerning intelligible order in that experience…The very soul of tough-minded common sense. One outcome of this decision I suspect is that other faculty at LSU now have fallible and progressive doubt on the ligitmacy of venerable doctrinces and goverance established by the accreditation process through WASC.
Cheers
tjoe
I've been away from AToday for about a week, so missed Erv's attempt to educate me regarding the meaning of due process in the context of this court decision. I have a little better insight into the judge's ruling as well.
First of all, how other major academic institutions define due process in dealing with tenured faculty is of no relevance. La Sierra is bound by its own bylaws and due process provisions. Tell me, Erv, which of those was violated?
Secondly, the tenured faculty members were not asked to resign their faculty positions. They were only told that if they chose not to resign their administrative appointments, the issues raised by the recording would be brought before the Board. In other words, they could either resign or avail themselves of due process. So Erv, what due process rights attached to administrative positions at LSU? Are you suggesting that, if the Board wanted new executive leadership at LSU, it would have to go through a hearing process before asking for the resignations of any executive leaders?
Third, the judge noted that in LSU's own bylaws, it is described as "…an institution of higher education sponsored and maintained by the Pacific Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventists as part of the system of education institutions established throughout the world by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The University is operated by its Board of Trustees as an integral part of the Pacific Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventists." So let's dispense with the plaintiffs' absurd argument that LSU is separate and independent institution, simply loosely affiliated with the SDA church.
Fourth, the plaintiffs, rather preposterously it seems to me, argued that Ricardo Graham, Chairman of the Board, had no right to ask them for their resignations. The judge pointed out that the plaintiffs had no applicable authority for that proposition, and that Graham gave them the option of going before the Board to have their conduct and statements reviewed. Furthermore, the Board of Trustees later ratified Graham's actions.
Finally, Judge Webster spent considerable time during his ruling reading excerpts from the recording that led to the resignation requests. He found, even as a non-SDA that many of the statements were offensive and callous. He observed that LSU had shown great mercy and tolerance by not firing the professors from their academic positions. He stated that the unrefuted evidence supported a finding that the paintiffs' conduct and comments violated their contracts, and justified them being fired – which they were not.
So T.Joe is at best misleading when he says that the court "ran for cover under the First Amendment." Actually, the court used First Amendment reasoning to uphold the right of the defendants to request the resignations. The First Amendment prohibitions against the courts entangling themselves in issues of church governance and beliefs were certainly not used by Judge Webster to give carte blanche to the University to ignore its own processes. It was the plaintiffs who argued that NAD and PUC leaders did not have a First Amendment right to communicate to LSU that its administrative leaders had expressed contempt for the core values and beliefs of LSU and the SDA Church in a manner that was likely to become public and embarrassing to LSU. Tell me, T.Joe, of what relevance was the faculty handbook to the request for, and offer of, resignations from non-faculty positions?
In reality, it was the plaintiffs' attorney who tried to run for cover under a variety of specious legal smoke screens that he hoped would render his clients immune from the consequences (consequences that they voluntarily chose) of embarrassing, offensive, disloyal behavior and speech that was utterly incompatible with their terms of employment and their duties of loyalty to LSU and the Church as senior administrators and faculty members. Only at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party that is modern higher education could such smoke screens be taken seriously and turned into a moral crusade by highly educated, intelligent people.
Exactly…
It occurs to me that some who are interested in this issue may not understand the legal procedure that resulted in the case being thrown out. A summary judgment must resolve all material contested issues of fact in favor of the party opposing the motion – in this case, the LSU faculty plaintiffs. A jury, not the judge, must resolve material issues of fact. So in this case, the judge assumed that all of the material factual issues claimed by the plaintiffs were true. He in essence said, "Even assuming I resolve all the factual disputes in your favor, plaintiffs, you still have no legal basis on which to bring this lawsuit. Therefore, since, as a matter of law, you do not have facts to support a cause of action, the defendants should not have to go through a pointless jury trial.
If there is anyone to be upset at in this case, it is not the Church and LSU leadership who were morally compelled, in their fiduciary capacity, to take action. Blame the person who came into possession of the recording, discovered the embarrassing material on it, and turned it over to Church leaders with the expectation that something would be done about it. Unfortunately, we all carelessly say, do, and think things in private that would very much embarrass and hurt us if they became public. If they do become pubic through no unlawful process, and if they adversely implicate commitments we have made, and reasonable expectations of employers who trust our loyalty to those commitments, then we have to bear the consequences, even if those who must impose the consequences regret the disclosures that make it necessary to impose consequences.
Thanks for that insight into the judge's ruling. That does clarify it somewhat. I may disagree with your assessment that modern higher education is a Mad Hatter's Tea Party but the info shared on the ruling is enlightening.
Yeah, you're right Mark. That was an unnecessary cheap shot. I just get frustrated that these good gentlemen (the plaintiffs) have been used as mascots by Adventist progressives to advance causes which I see as totally irrelevant to the circumstances surrounding their resignations.