New West Network

Faculty Union Supports Prof. Habib Sadid

By Nick Gier, New West Unfiltered 11-11-09

THE FACULTY UNION SUPPORTS PROF. HABIB SADID

By Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho

Habib Sadid, an award-winning engineering professor at Idaho State University for 22 years, has been dismissed from his position. In 2002 Sadid received both the Distinguished Researcher Award and the Distinguished Teacher Award. In the spring of 2008 his dean wrote that Sadid is "an asset for the College of Engineering."

On October 23 a faculty appeals board released a report in which, by a vote of 4-1, it found insufficient evidence for Sadid’s termination. The majority concluded that due process had not been followed and that the lack of documentation for such a serious charge was “disturbing.”

ISU President Arthur Vailas rejected the appeal board recommendation and sent Sadid a termination letter. He also had the audacity to demand that the Faculty Senate rescind its resolution, which it had passed by a vote of 19-5 strongly supporting Sadid. At a November 9 meeting the senators refused to reconsider their vote.

At a meeting on October 22 the ISU Federation of Teachers voted to support Sadid with a legal aid grant of $2,300. My organization, the Idaho Federation of Teachers, will soon vote to match that amount.

Sadid’s attorney is now filling out an application form for legal aid from our national office. We fully expect them not only to send us $4,600, but also match the over $20,000 that Sadid has already paid in legal fees.

Since 1974 the Idaho faculty union has won 9 out of 11 major court cases, and we are prepared to go all the way to gain justice for Professor Sadid. We have estimated that for every dollar we spend on attorneys, campus administrators spend two dollars of Idaho’s taxpayer money.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) might also send an investigation team. They rarely get involved in suits, but they do place wayward institutions on their famous censure list. Any self-respecting academic institution would want to do anything possible to avoid being among the censured institutions.

In 1984 our UI faculty union won a million dollar settlement for eight faculty members in the College of Agriculture, and the AAUP had also sent a team to the UI campus. The result was that the AAUP placed the UI on its censure list.

In 1989 Elizabeth Zinser, a finalist for the UI presidency, insisted that she would not take the position unless the UI was removed from the blacklist. The Idaho State Board of Education (SBOE) quickly revised its financial exigency policies so that they were compliant with AAUP principles.

Sadid’s case has already been featured in “Inside Higher Education” and the “Chronicle of Higher Education.” It raises fundamental issues of tenure, academic freedom, and constitutional free speech.

A negative resolution of Sadid’s suit will impact the rights of all American professors. That is why my union is committed to financing the best legal representation possible.

Professor Sadid has been tenured since 1994, and U.S. courts have determined that tenure is a property right that can be removed only by full due process of law. A tenured professor can be fired for professional incompetence, a felony conviction, or moral turpitude.

The charges against Sadid fall outside of these categories, and he believes that the First Amendment protects his criticism of the ISU administration.

The university attorney, however, counters that constitutional free speech is not absolute, and he may be citing the 2006 Supreme Court decision Garcetti v. Ceballos, in which the court ruled that public employee free speech rights may be limited while performing “official duties.”

The justices explicitly wrote that this decision may not apply to university professors, and AAUP President Cary Nelson has stated that the use of Garcetti v. Ceballos “represents a dangerous application of [the case] to a faculty member at a public institution of higher education.”

Our academic campuses must remain society’s essential bastions of free speech and free inquiry. University administrators must proceed with utmost caution when they interfere with not only those conditions under which learning and research occur, but also the conditions under which decisions about faculty and college governance take place.

Nick Gier is President of the Higher Education Council of the Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO. He taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. Read or listen to all his columns at www.NickGier.com