Crime and punishment in the university system

Monday, August 15, 2005 5:21 PM CDT

For educated people, those folks over in the University of Wisconsin System sure seem to have a predilection for stepping into it with the state Legislature.

But this year they're on a real run. They've run into heated criticism for sidestepping a state crackdown on state fleet vehicles by giving stipends to chancellors to buy or lease cars; they granted year-long paid leaves to four UW-Milwaukee administrators after they resigned their administrative posts; and granted a seven-month leave to a UW-Madison vice chancellor of student affairs for allegedly taking his job title too literally.

So perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised this week when there was another flare-up over reports that the UW-Madison is keeping three professors on the payroll even though they have been convicted of crimes and two of them are currently behind bars.

That, predictably, has aroused the wrath of a state legislator, state Rep. Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) who says that university employees who are convicted of a crime should be dismissed immediately and given no pay.

Under the UW-Madison policy, professors can't be fired just because they've been found guilty in a court of law - the university must hold its own investigation to determine whether their is cause for dismissal and the professors have a right to appeal through the university system and even to state courts.

"I don't care if it's standard practice at other universities. Wisconsin taxpayers aren't going to stand for it, certainly not for university employees who have been convicted of a crime, especially when they're apparently able to tap into vacation time while in prison," Suder was quoted as saying in a Milwaukee newspaper.

And we can understand Suder's anger.

One medical professor, Roberto Coronado, has been sentenced to eight years in prison and ten years supervision for sexually assaulting three young girls.

Steven Clark, an associate professor in the medical school, was sentenced for a year in jail for stalking.

The third, a literature professor, Lewis Keith Cohen, got 30 days in jail and two years probation, for having sexually explicit conversations with a 14-year-old boy on the Internet and sending him nude photographs of himself.

Not the kind of activities you want your faculty engaging in.

In fairness, the UW-Madison has moved to fire one of the professors and is conducting investigations of the other two to see if there are grounds for dismissal or if they violated faculty conduct codes.

Coronado is using up 2 � months accrued vacation time and will then be on unpaid leave; Clark is using one month of accrued vacation time and will then be on unpaid leave as well. Cohen will reportedly serve his 30-day sentence at the end of this month and will then continue to be paid pending the outcome of the university's investigation.

If Suder's intent is to stop university employees from using vacation pay once they're convicted of a crime, he's welcome to pursue that. Our guess is that will raise some legal issues over whether the employee has already earned that time and if the employer can legally strip it away.

But we're bothered by Suder's one-size-fits-all approach to firing and stopping the pay for any university employee found guilty of a crime.

Just what kind of crimes are we talking about? Felonies? Misdemeanors? To be sure these three cases reflect some pretty unsavory behavior. We suppose that's why in two of the cases the UW-Madison is suspending without pay once the employee's vacation time is used up. That seems to us a very reasoned response.

But the university - like any employer - is certainly right to make its own assessment on the continued employment of one of its employees who run afoul of the law.

Would a drunken driving conviction cost a professor his job? Or multiple speeding tickets? How about being a peeping tom? Or what about trespassing for participating in a civil rights sit-in? Or failure to obey a lawful order and resisting arrest for being in a peace march? University officials argue the issue here hinges on protecting academic freedom - to encourage the free exchange of ideas and to prevent professors from being fired for minor offenses.

There's a kernel of truth in that stance. Even more compelling is the argument that a cookie-cutter solution that substitutes a "zero-tolerance" standard for thoughtful judgment is no solution at all.

The Legislature should take a deep breath before stampeding ahead with demands for changes in UW regulations and policies.

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