APA Committee for
Defense of Professional
Rights of Philosophers

Committee Report
1996

The following appeared in Volume 70, Number 5 (May, 1997) of the Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association.

Richard Wasserstrom, Chair

The Committee received three formal complaints from APA members. One dealt with denial of tenure, another with the wrongful termination of a faculty member. The case concerning the denial of a promotion was resolved in a manner satisfactory to the complainant, although, due to an oversight on the part of the Chair in the handling of this complaint, the satisfactory result was achieved largely without the Committee's assistance. The other two cases remain open. The case concerning the denial of tenure was determined to be premature in that the final tenure decision had not yet been made, and the case involving the allegation of wrongful termination was received too late in the academic year to be considered by the present Committee.

The Committee also had before it one complaint that had been lodged with it at the end of the preceding academic year. It concerned a claim of marital discrimination against one of the finalists in an advertised, tenure-track job search. In that case, the Committee determined that the complaint made out a prima facie case of the violation of the complainants' professional rights, and, as is the Committee's practice in such cases, the Chair invited the department in question to respond to the factual allegations made by the complainant. The department denied all of the relevant allegations and asserted that the hiring decision had been made without regard to the complainant's marital status. At present the case remains unresolved and still open, pending the outcome of additional fact-finding that is being undertaken by a state agency, pursuant to a claim of discrimination that the complainant also made to that agency.

In addition to coordinating the Committee's response to these formal complaints, the Chair also informally counseled several APA members who inquired about various problems and potential complaints.

APA Committee for Defense of Professional Rights of Philosophers

Committee Report 1996

APA Committee for
Defense of Professional
Rights of Philosophers

Committee Report
1996