Here's Another Idea

Sue 'em.

Tired of years of public urination, assaults and vandalism, residents near UC Berkeley's southern edge on Tuesday sued dozens of the university's fraternities.

The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court against more than 70 groups and property owners, contends that the fraternities make life miserable for neighbors by encouraging underage drinking, littering sidewalks and streets, partying all night and shooting pellet guns at residents. The suit asks for unspecified monetary damages and an end to the noise and destruction.

Technorati Tags: alcohol abuse, fraternaties, Berkeley, lawsuit

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Taking a Swing at the King

The Centre Daily Time, an already  weak paper, has been weakened further by the financial crunch facing most newspapers today. Consequently it is unlikely that the paper will report on this story with a local connection. Therefore I bring it to you.

Ten Westmoreland County landowners claim in eight civil lawsuits that they are owed millions of dollars by a State College-based energy company that agreed to lease their properties to tap into the natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale seam, only to back out of the contracts when energy prices plummeted.
[...]
The most recent filing was a class-action lawsuit on July 10 against Rex Energy Corp. in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court....

The chairman of the board and founder of Rex Energy is Lance Shaner.

Technorati Tags: Rex Energy, Lance Shaner, lawsuit, Center Daily Times

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Penn State Compensation and Salary Data: Gender

One thing that jumped out at me as I was putting together the tables in my last post is that only two women appear in any of the list.

Eva Pell, Vice president for Research, is the only female officer of the University and her salary of $256,400, which is her total compensation, is smaller than the smallest salary, $382,464, on the list of top 25 salaries.

The only other woman is Kathleen Eggli, Chair of the Department of Radiology, who makes the list of top 25 salaries at number 10 with a salary of $478,522.

Is this evidence of a gender bias at Penn State? That's a tough question to answer and this data is insufficient to answer it. Many factors go into determining how much someone is paid and they must be accounted for before any conclusion can be made. However, the near total absence of women does demand that a closer look be taken.

In fact, one woman at at Hershey is demanding just such a look be taken.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Gender Discrimation, lawsuit, Right-To-Know

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More On Penn State's Legal Expenses: John R. Hancock v. The Pennsylvania State University

Here's a bit more information on the lawsuit filed by John R. Hancock against Penn State in October of 2005 which I mentioned in my last post.  Hancock, a maintenance worker, was fired by Penn State. He claimed  that it was because of his disability. 

Here are the details from the complaint which was filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Penn State hired John R. Hancock in 1993.  Mr. Hancock worked for Penn  State in the position of Maintenance Worker Utility Grade 9 for nine years, from July  1995 through May 5, 2004, when Penn State terminated his employment.   

In Fall of 2003, Mr. Hancock was diagnosed with terminal illness due to  cirrhosis of the liver.

From the Fall of 2003 to the time of his termination, Mr. Hancock’s medical  condition progressively worsened.  During this period, Mr. Hancock’s illness impaired  his major life activities, including his ability to walk and lift, his control over his bodily  functions, and his short-term memory.  It has also affected his equilibrium and impaired  his ability to eat a normal diet and caused him to suffer from extreme fatigue.

Since early November 2003, Penn State has been aware of Mr. Hancock’s  medical condition.  At that time, Mr. Hancock’s wife advised his then-direct supervisor, Mark Bigelow, as well as Human Resource Coordinator Susan Rutan, of Mr. Hancock’s illness.  

In the Winter of 2004, despite knowledge of Mr. Hancock’s disability, Penn  State required Mr. Hancock to perform more taxing duties than he had previously  performed.  Previously, three employees had been assigned the task of cleaning the power plant area; Penn State now required Mr. Hancock and a seventy-year old co- worker to clean the entire area.  At one point, for a span of ten to fourteen days,  Mr. Hancock was required to clean the entire plant himself.  In addition, at the same  time, Penn State significantly increased the surface area that Mr. Hancock was required to clean.

Mr. Hancock sought reasonable accommodation for his qualified disability.   On or about January 11, 2004, Mr. Hancock discussed such accommodations with his  supervisor, Mark Bigelow.  Mr. Bigelow’s sole offer of an accommodation was a transfer  to a lower level position with decreased pay.  The very next day, January 12, 2004, Mr. Hancock agreed to acceptthe lower-paying position.  However, Penn State failed to  place Mr. Hancock in this position.    

On March 1, 2004, Mr. Bigelow pressured Mr. Hancock to apply for leave  under the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) and told Mr. Hancock that the earliest  Penn State could provide any accommodation was the end of 2004.  Moreover, Mr.Bigelow told Mr. Hancock that he must continue to perform all of the physically  demanding activities of his current position until that time and emphasized that Mr. Hancock would be required to operate the floor scrubber which Mr. Bigelow stated would likely hit Mr. Hancock directly in the liver and cause painful internal bleeding.

Mr. Hancock refused to apply for FMLA leave and continued to perform  his job despite his disability.  However, workers in the power plant increasingly  undermined his work by placing hostile notes in his locker and by deliberately making  him redo his work, by, for example, putting fresh wax beneath objects on the floor,  which when removed would expose the area that needed to be buffed.  Mr. Hancock  notified his supervisor, but no corrective action was taken.

In late April, Eileen Long, a new supervisor was assigned to Mr.  Hancock’s area.  Ms. Long made a practice of continually criticizing Mr. Hancock and asking whether he could do certain types of work, such as snow shoveling or floor  waxing, jobs that Mr. Hancock had problems performing because of his disability.  However, Ms. Long failed to provide Mr. Hancock with the accommodation he had been  previously promised, not did she offer any other accommodation. 

Ms. Long was aware that Mr. Hancock had a disability, requested  reasonable accommodation, and that he complained about the actions of co-workers.

On May 5, 2004, Area Services Manager Gregory Anderson, Janitorial  Supervisor Eileen Long, and Manager of Human Resources Susan Rutan informed Mr.  Hancock that he was discharged due to misconduct, based on statements he had allegedly made earlier that day to Ms. Long.  

On May 17, 2004, Penn State sent Mr. Hancock a letter confirming the meeting on May 5, 2004 and the termination of his employment.

Penn State terminated Mr. Hancock on account of his disability and his  continued requests for reasonable accommodation, and in retaliation for making continued requests for reasonable accommodation.  The Defendant’s alleged reason for terminating Mr. Hancock is pretextual.  

Subsequent to his dismissal, Plaintiff filed timely charges with the Equal   Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging that he had been terminated  unlawfully on account of his disability. 

On July 11, 2005, Plaintiff was sent a right-to-sue letter by the EEOC. 

As a result of the discharge, Plaintiff has lost his income and has had to buy replacement medical insurance necessary for treating his terminal condition.

The case was settled in April of last year and , as is the practice with Old Main, the terms of the settlement  were sealed.

We now know that John Hancock settled his ADA case for $400,000 and his lawyer at the time of the settlement, Kathryn Chandless,(He changed lawyers midway through the case.) was paid $90,000.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, John R. Hancock, ADA lawsuit, settlement amount

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How Much Did the Jen Harris Settlement Cost Penn State?

Yesterday it was reported in the LATimes that,

Karen Moe Humphreys, a former Olympic gold medal swimmer who became a coach and administrator at UC Berkeley, will receive more than $3.5 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit she brought against the university, the UC Board of Regents agreed Thursday.

Humphreys, who worked at UC Berkeley from 1978 until she was laid off in 2004, alleged that she lost her job in retaliation for complaining about the treatment of women by the university's athletic department.

Under the agreement, Humphreys will be reinstated and then retire in January when she reaches 30 years with the university. She said the $3.5 million will go entirely to cover her attorney fees and legal costs.

But earlier this year when former Penn State Lady Lions basketball player Jennifer Harris settled a similar lawsuit which she brought against Penn State, her former coach Rene Portland, university President Graham Spanier, and athletic director Tim Curley the terms of the settlement remained confidential. This is a standard practice at Penn State, which can happen because, as regular readers of this blog surely know, Pennsylvania's Right-To-Know law doesn't cover Penn State and other state-related universities.

It may, nonetheless, be possible to estimate a ballpark figure on the settlement amount when the next Stairs report is issued sometime in the winter or early spring of 2009. In this post, I'll explain how to get an upper bound on the amount the University had to pay Harris and along the way give some upper bounds on past settlement fees the University has paid out, but kept secret.

The each Stair report gives the total legal expenses for Penn State for the previous fiscal year. The report doesn't explain how this number is arrived at but it is reasonable to assume that it is the sum of a several terms including, lawyers fees, court costs, fines, settlement amounts, etc,... These reports also give a list of all large payments for good and services. This happens to include the amount paid to the University's law firm McQuade-Blasko. As you will soon see, the payments to McQuade-Blasko are fairly stable over time, but the total legal expenses vary wildly, as one would expect of court costs, fines, settlement payments, ect,.... Hence by subtracting off the amount paid to McQuade-Blasko from the total legal expenses for a given fiscal year one arrives at, what is likely, an upper bound for settlement payments for the year.

The following table summarizes these expenses.

Fiscal Year	Att. Fees	Uncat.	Total
94-95	$2,379,547	$0	$2,379,547
95-96	$2,698,531	$1,500,766	$4,199,297
96-97	$2,930,614	$956,353	$3,886,967
97-98	$3,041,353	$104,159	$3,145,512
98-99	$3,682,431	$5,158,008	$8,840,439
99-00	$3,506,531	$1,048,853	$4,555,384
00-01	$3,257,627	$494,575	$3,752,202
01-02	$3,016,559	$130,937	$3,147,496
02-03	$3,356,661	$1,847,318	$5,203,979
03-04	$2,794,878	$247,640	$3,042,518
04-05	$3,078,122	$272,207	$3,350,329
05-06	$2,811,812	$2,699,730	$5,511,542
	Penn State	Legal Exp.

The second column is the payment made to McQuade-Blasko each year, as reported by Penn State to the state. The fourth column is the amount of legal expenses Penn State has reported to the state each year. The third column is the difference of the fourth and second columns. This is the amount of uncategorized legal expenses which Penn State has incurred during each of the fiscal years. The following graph gives a better idea of what is going on here.



The first thing to note on the graph is that the only legal expenses Penn State reported during the 94-95 fiscal year were its attorney fees. This was the fiscal year prior to Spanier's arrival at Penn State. It would be wrong to conclude, without knowledge of legal expenditures in years before 94-95, that Spanier policies were responsible for the subsequent rise in legal costs. It is just as likely that the outgoing president Joab Thomas chose to let his successor deal with any pending legal actions.

In Spanier's first year the uncategorized cost were $1.50 million. That year the University settled a defamation lawsuit against it brought by three professors who were each asking for $5 million. Of course, the terms of the settlement weren't made public. Now we can see that the upper bound on the settlement amount is $1.50 million or $500,000 per plaintiff.

The 96-97 fiscal year saw the uncategorized expenses drop to $0.96 million. The added costs may have been due to a tax settlement between the University and Centre County. In this case, the terms of the settlement were released because it was with a government entity.

The agreement calls for the University to pay about $1 million each year to be divided between State College Borough, Ferguson Township, and Harris Township, as well as the State College Area School District in-lieu of taxes.

The uncategorized expense are in line with the terms of this settlement, but it is not clear that this money would have been reported under legal expenses.

The next fiscal year saw a dramatic drop in the uncategorized expenses to $0.10 million and a search of the Collegian didn't turn up settled lawsuit that year.

The fiscal year 98-99 was a biggie for uncategorized expenses; these expenses shot up to $5.19 million. This one is a mystery to me. I cannot find any lawsuit settlements for that year. There may have been a suit brought against Penn State outside of the Centre Region which was never reported on here. For example, one possibility is that the spike is associated with the disastrous merger , which Spanier once characterized as "truly a national model", between Penn State Hershey Health Center and the Geisinger Health System which was undone the following year. This is all speculation. If you have any idea what caused this spike leave it in the comments.

At the turn of the century, the uncategorized cost were down to $1.05 million. Again I found nada in the way of legal settlement for this fiscal year. Again, little help from the readers would be appreciated. The uncategorized expenses were below a half million for the next two fiscal year and jumped $1.85 million in fiscal year 02-03. Some of that is accounted for by this settlement the terms of which were made public.

Penn State has agreed to an out-of-court settlement with a sexual assault victim who claimed the university did not protect her from harassment and intimidation following her assault in August 1999.

The terms of the settlement, filed in District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania this week, awarded $17,500 to the woman who was only identified as "Jane Doe."

There was also this from that year, but no word on any settlement.

A 51-year-old mushroom scientist with a genetic joint defect has accused Penn State of age and/or job discrimination stemming from a 2001 job search, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh.

The next two fiscal years, once again, had rather low uncategorized costs.

In the final fiscal year covered in these reports 05-06 the uncategorized costs went up to $2.70 million which makes it year for the second highest uncategorized costs. The University was sued that year (also here) the former head of the Philosophy Department Mitchell Aboulafia and the suit was settled out of court.

A Penn State professor who claimed he was illegally de moted is settling his case against the university, according to court filings. Mitchell Aboulafia, 54, was the head of the philosophy department from July 2003 until March 2004, when officials in the College of the Liberal Arts took away the leadership position.

As usual the terms were not made public, but word on the street is that Aboulafia did quite well in the settlement. We now know that the upper bound on the settlement is $2.70 million.

That brings me to the end of this little adventure in accountability. Next winter we can try to estimate the what the Harris lawsuit settlement cost the University.

But the more important thing about this exercise is that it illustrates how little useful information the Stairs reports give the citizens of Pennsylvania concerning the operations of Penn State. It took a great deal of sleuthing on my part to put this post together and the whole thing amounts to little more than a bunch of tenuous inferences with gapping holes. That is no way to hold an institution accountable. We need a new Right-To-Know law which will cover Penn State and other state-related universities.


Technorati Tags: Penn State, Rene Portland, Jen Harris, Lawsuits, Settlement Amounts

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Hey! Look Over There.

Yesterday the Penn State propaganda portal had an item about a big gift to Penn State from J. Lloyd and Dorothy F. Huck. Now I know how Penn State operates and above all else it is a PR machine inhabiting the body of a university. Hence the first thing that came to my mind was that Old Main wants to grab the headlines in tomorrows papers with a positive story in order to distract from a negative one. Typically, there would only be one bad news story with which the University would be concerned. My initial guess was that that story would be the announcement of the arrests of several Penn State football players in a news conference which had already been scheduled for today. However, it turns out that today there is a double dose of bad news for Graham. In addition to the football player story, I was greeted this morning with stories in the CDT and Collegian about eight women faculty members at the Hershey Medical School who have filed a discrimination lawsuit.

To its credit the Collegian didn't pick up the donor story, however the CDT went for it hook, line and sinker. Here is a screen shot of their quick link section on the top of the front page of their web site.


Notice that the donor story is the first one and that it is labeled "Penn State". The story about the lawsuit is the third story and it is labeled "Bias Claims". Well, I guess you can't go wrong underestimating the intelligence of the editors of the CDT.

This donor story isn't even that big of a deal because Penn State hasn't even seen a cent of the donation as of yet.

Penn State alumni J. Lloyd and Dorothy F. Huck have announced their intention to provide a $20 million endowment to support teaching, research and other academic activities at the University's Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.

I wrote about this PR tactic once before when the Schreyers' recent donation was announced. There too Penn State has yet to see a penny of the money.

Penn State's Schreyer Honors College has received a $25 million gift commitment from its namesakes, William and Joan Schreyer, to support scholarships and other student and faculty programs.

Basically what is going on is that these fat cats have made Penn State a beneficiary in their wills. Penn State holds on to the information until they have some distracting to do and the CDT falls for it everytime.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, spin, bias suits

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It's Official

Rene Portland has resigned as head coach of the Lady Lions basketball team. FightOnState.com reports that she was forced out.

Veteran Lady Lion coach steps down from the post she held for more than a quarter of a century. Sources tell FightOnState.com she resigned under pressure from the Penn State administration.

[...]

But a source close to the situation said Portland was given an ultimatum by the university last Friday -- step down or be dismissed.

However, at a presser this afternoon Athletic Directer Tim Curley denied that the University forced her out-kinda.

Curley denied reports that university officials pressured Portland into the decision by telling her she would be fired had she not resigned, but admitted he was not surprised when she handed in her resignation.

"I did not try to convince her to change her mind," Curley said. "She had obviously given this a lot of thought and I didn't think it was in my position to try to change what she had looked through in her situation, and I have never been one to try to talk people out of something that they had given a lot of thought to."

Note that Curley has not denied that Portland was forced out. All that he denied was the particular method used to force her out. The fact that her resignation didn't take him by surprise suggests that other methods were used to push her out.  It is also worth noting that,

Karen Doering, Harris' attorney with at the National Center for Lesbian rights, said her client wished Portland the best. "This did not have anything to do with the lawsuit to our knowledge," Doering said about Portland's resignation.

I will wait to see what tomorrow's papers bring before I add my own two cents on this.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Portland, Harris, Spanier, Curley, lawsuit

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R.I.P. Portland?

The Philadelphia Inquirer writes Rene Portland's professional obituary.

Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland is considering stepping down, sources familiar with the situation said last night.

Penn State officials and the 54-year-old coach were not available for comment last night.

The news on Portland comes several months after an out-of-court settlement in a controversial case involving former player Jennifer Harris, who claimed Portland dismissed her from the squad in March 2005 because the Penn State coach perceived her to be a lesbian.

Since Harris' departure to James Madison University, the Nittany Lions have suffered two straight losing seasons, the first under Portland in her 27 years in charge of the program.

[...]



In 1991, Portland's team earned its first No. 1 ranking in the weekly Associated Press poll. She was named the coach of the year by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association that season.



That same year, however, an article in The Inquirer noted the Penn State coach's negative attitude toward players who were gay.



The Harris controversy brought Portland's views back into the spotlight.



Penn State launched a six-month internal investigation and found that Harris' perceived sexual orientation by Portland caused the coach to create a "hostile, intimidating and offensive environment."



On April 18, 2006, university president Graham Spanier announced that Portland had been fined $10,000 and required to undergo diversity and inclusiveness training.



He added that Portland would be fired if she was found to violate the school's anti-discrimination policy.



Portland's response was to say the investigation was "flawed." She continued to contest the charges until an out-of-court settlement was reached.



A stipulation of the settlement was that neither side reveal the results.

We will likely never know if Portland's retirement was part of that settlement.



Technorati Tags: Penn State, Portland, Harris, Spanier

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Breaking: Harris Cements Deal with Portland

Penn State, Tim Curley, and Rene Portland have reached a settlement with Jen Harris who had accused Portland of discriminating because she had thought that Harris was a lesbian. Both the lawsuit and the complaint filed with the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission have been dropped. The terms of the settlement agreement are confidential.


Why settle now? Penn State's decision to settle may have been due either to the announcement that the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission planned a preliminary investigation into Penn State practices or to documents recently filed in Federal District Court under seal. It is also possible that the Human Rights Commission was privy to those document and they played a role in motivating the investigation.

My guess is that Penn State settled this in order to keep its dirty secrets secret.

Technorati Tags: Portland, Harris, Penn State, discrimination
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The Collegian on Free Speech Zones

As I wrote yesterday, the CDT report on the revision made to Penn State's "Free Speech Zone" policy (AD51) did a very poor job of explaining what change was made and what the practical consequences of the change will be. It turns out that on August 8th the Collegian reported the same story and it does explain quite succinctly how AD51 was altered this summer.

Penn State Policy AD-51, "Use of Outdoor Areas for Expressive Activities," has also been modified, French said.

It used to list a number of campus locations "designated as areas suitable for expressive activity," including the front of Old Main and the Allen Street Gates.

At the bottom of the list, the policy used to read "Other areas on University property are reserved solely for their intended purposes."

French said removing the sentence opened up the other public areas on campus to speech.

"Deleting that sentence, in our view, changed the meaning of the policy a great deal," he said. "Now it says you can use these specific areas, but you can also use everywhere else," he added.

The policy never said that groups must use the designated areas in order to engage in "expressive activities". It said,"Registered student organizations, or a group of ten or more University students, faculty or staff, may reserve any one of the identified locations..." However, the sentence which was removed was a restriction which said that other areas were off limits to groups of ten or larger. I am not a lawyer, but it does appear that the removal of that sentence from AD51 does indeed neuter the "Free Speech Zone" policy.

While the CDT's headline likely got it right, the reporter did a very poor job of explaining what the changes were. Further it would have been nice to have had the opinion of an independent lawyer concerning the meaning of the change. I would also like to have seen the reporter ask PSU flack Mahon, "What activity would be allowed today that would not have been allow before the University made the current changes to AD51?"

That said, this is very good news.

Free Speech Comes to Penn State

The headline in today's CDT reads:University ends policy of 'free-speech zones'. This would be great news if it were true. Here is how the paper describes the situation.

Penn State students and activists have called them, disparagingly, the "free-speech zones," the spots on campus that the administration designated for big political rallies and demonstrations.

The zones, established under policy AD 51, have been in place seven years.

But in a legal agreement reached this summer, Penn State has quietly eased up on the controversial rule.

Student organizations and other groups can still reserve the 12 designated areas, including the Old Main front patio, to guarantee space for their "expressive" events.

Those zones, however, are no longer the only places where Penn State will permit a rally or demonstration.

In effect, the whole campus is now a "free-speech zone." Demonstrators just need to comply with university rules and regulations -- and not interfere with university business, according to the revised policy.

This leaves one with the impression that any group can now exercise free speech anywhere on campus as long as they are well behaved. However, the policy only allows for groups smaller than ten to do so. Further, the revision to the policy (AD51) which loosened the restriction on small groups was made in the July of 1999 four months after the policy went in to effect.

Here is how the 1999 change was explained in the Intercom, the now defunct house organ of Penn State administration,

The modifications will allow for individuals or small groups to engage in free speech activities at any outdoor location on campus provided that noise levels do not conflict with programs or classes and provided that crowd size does not prevent normal movement in and out of buildings or otherwise cause a safety problem.

"There has been a great deal of attention paid to the new policy that was put forth by the Campus Environment Team last spring," said Jones, who chairs the group. "The team was rightfully responding to concerns about classroom disruptions and the safety of students exiting buildings that were blocked. But some have expressed concern that the policy might unnecessarily deter individuals from speaking out in areas that are not designated by the policy."

This is how the Collegian described the policy change seven summers ago.

In a rare move, the Penn State administration has decided to listen to cries of dissent against one of its policies and has made revisions to Policy AD51.

As people might recall, the policy had designated only certain areas on campus as "free-speech zones," excluding the steps of Willard Building, the spot from which Gary Cattell has preached for years.

Now, a clarified policy makes it clear that free speech activities are allowed at any outdoor location on campus.

Note that these stories from 1999 sound very similar to what was blared from the CDT this morning. It would appear that the CDT is seven years late to the story.

Not that there wasn't a change this summer to AD51; there was. Here is how it is described in the policy document itself.

June 28, 2006 - Editorial change made in "Locations For Expressive Activity," removing sentence that referred to other areas on University property.

According to the CDT, " The policy change came as part of a settlement that Penn State reached with student A.J. Fluehr, a lawyer said. Through the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group in Arizona, Fluehr filed litigation in February that alleged several university policies violated his constitutional rights to free speech."

Exactly what was changed this summer and does it have any practical consequences? These questions remain unanswered.

It appears to me that someone spun the CDT. It could have been Old Main or it could have been Fluehr or his lawyer. Both sides come out looking good in the CDT story. Penn State loosens a controversial rule. That looks good. Fluehr wins his battle against the University. That looks good too. Who spun the CDT?