Love this little hidden gem, but this is unsettling. Georgia College professor sues university, saying they fired him after he complained about student plagiarism | 13wmaz.com
On a public forum, the professor (allegedly posting as a “private citizen” while sharing that he is a professor at the college) stated that nearly half of his students committed plagiarism on assignments. Doesn’t seem like a comment of a “private citizen” to me. Also, maybe the professor should add a class or two on the subject of plagiarism.
Does not look like he posted on “a public forum”. Looks like the professor, when the school didn’t follow what was apparently supposed to be their protocol, reached out for opinions to the Legal Writing institute. Looks like one might have to qualify to register.
“Although most LWI members are actively engaged in legal education, the legal profession, or both, we welcome and encourage others to join….For more information on how to apply for membership, please support@lwionline.org. “
He apparently posted to a closed listserv
“Our listserv, Legal Writing Institute community (LWIC), is a closed listserv. It is intended to provide a forum in which scholars and teachers of legal writing can discuss topics in their field. Professional teachers of legal writing are eligible to join the group. Included within that category are current, former, and aspiring teachers of legal writing in law schools and other academic institutions as well as lawyers who teach legal writing as part of their business or practice. “
The school is claiming he violated FERPA guidelines but there doesn’t seem to be any clear directly identifying information of the school or the student(s) involved. There may have been a bit too much detail in his post, but does it reach the criteria of a violation of FERPA?
Unless he gave information about this student that would have allowed her public identification, it is not a violation of FERPA. Describing a person to a group that doesn’t have any knowledge of the students in his class is not going to allow them to identify a particular student. I don’t think that a FERPA violation would hold up in court. I’m assuming he didn’t actually name her, of course (if he did, he’s in trouble).
Talking smack about your employer can land you in hot water, though. Nothing in the article explains how this professor’s comments became public … I know that anyone can out anyone else, and you should always assume that someone will try to get you in trouble if you say anything about your employer. Someone on that listserv decided to get him in trouble, and if they provided the school administration with evidence that he disagreed with their decision, that would likely make them want to get rid of him. If their own rules prohibited them from firing him for that, I could see them making the stretch of FERPA violation. Again, based on the information provided, I don’t think that would stick in court. But his career as a professor is probably over, regardless. And honestly, it sounds like a terrible place to teach.
To quote that article:
While many of the claims are more difficult to prove, this claim is factual. Either Lamparello has letter or email from the college saying that he’s fired/terminated/etc, or the college has a letter or email from Lamparello saying that he’s quitting. The College made this claim publicly, and Lamparello has publicly claimed that he was terminated. So one of them will be shown to be lying, and I expect that will determine the outcome of Lamparello’s lawsuit.
It’s interesting because Lamparello is well versed in the law, and I cannot believe that he would claim something on a lawsuit that is provably false, but I also cannot believe that a College spokesperson would be so dumb as to have an easily provable lie on an official statement.
Lamparello has an advantage, since he doesn’t really need to show any official message from the College, just proof that his employment was ended, while the College needs some sort of proof that Lamparello said that he was quitting.
That $75,000 also seems to be a small amount, considering the fact that Lamparello can claim that his career as an academic was destroyed.
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Seriously ?
Pretty sure that this occurs on a daily basis (in both civil & criminal matters).
False claims are not unusual in lawsuits. In short, assertions made in lawsuits are protected unless under oath and assertions/claims made in court filings are often done as a form of extortion as many executive officers would rather settle than testify (deposition or at trial). And many claims are made in order to be able to engage in discovery to gather potential leads and evidence.
In some jurisdictions, a simple denial (w/o an explanation of why it is untrue/inaccurate) of an opponent’s assertions is equivalent to an admission which can make a false statement a matter of fact for that case. Additionally, some litigants can make provably false assertions in good faith. This is why our legal system has discovery and why trials have a finder of fact (judge, jury, or a mediator/referee type individual).
P.S. Many false claims have resulted in innocent individuals being convicted & incarcerated and even put to death.
Was it filed in federal court? 75,000 demand may just be the basis for federal court jurisdiction. Demands in complaints very rarely have any real relationship to what can/will be recovered.
As far as the resigned/termination thing, my guess is he signed a voluntary resignation letter in exchange for a severance payment. He may perceive himself as having been “fired“ because he really didn’t have much of a choice, and if he had refused to sign the document or receive the severance payment he likely would have been fired, but my guess is that is why there is a difference in terms between the lawsuit and the press release.
Looks like it might not be the last we hear about this, as attorney Michael Thad Allen recently filed and was granted admission into the case. He has an interesting background. I don’t believe I can put a link in my reply, but the name of an article that caught my eye was “Historian Turned Lawyer Finds Second Career Suing Ridiculous, Clearly Out of Control Universities”.
@kelsmom No, it doesn’t sound like a great place to teach under the current admin… I have a feeling this isn’t the only instance where something like this has occurred, if that’s truly what the environment is there. But the behind the scenes, inner workings of academia at a lot of universities can get farcically messy, particularly when leadership is poor. It’s unusual that it spills into the open, for parents and the public to see, though.