Law Schools

Professor's Discrimination Lawsuit Against Law School To Move Forward

Summary judgment defeated.

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Shaakirrah Sanders

Back in 2019, Shaakirrah Sanders — a tenured professor at the University of Idaho College of Law — filed a lawsuit alleging racial and gender discrimination and retaliation against the law school and former dean Mark L. Adams. Now Judge B. Lynn Winmill has ruled on a summary judgment motion, allowing several claims to move forward.

As reported by the ABA Journal:

“In sum, the evidence submitted by Sanders is more than sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the reasons articulated by defendants for not hiring Sanders as associate dean were pretextual,” Winmill wrote.

He also approved Sanders’ motion to file her third amended complaint to name former interim dean Jerrold Long as an individual defendant in light of information that came from 2020 depositions.

However, the judge granted summary judgment on whistleblower and academic freedoms laws, holding the university is immune from federal lawsuits regarding state law.

Sanders alleges multiple complaints were made to the school’s leadership about Adams, and as a result an internal review was initiated. According to the complaint, that review “documented that leadership was aware of multiple complaints including concerns of ‘disrespectful, uncivil and abusive communication, gender bias and/or sex discrimination, poor leadership, lack of transparency in process, a perception of favoritism in the allocation of resources and poor morale amongst staff and faculty members.”

Adams stepped down in June of 2018, but it’s alleged that didn’t stop the problem:

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Jerrold Long was appointed to replace Adams as interim dean and was tasked with addressing diversity issues, including a 2018 university human resources report that detailed gender bias concerns. Some faculty claimed women were shut out by senior leadership for “aggressive communication,” and that gender bias played a role in who was allowed to speak in meetings, the order states.

Between 2011 and 2018, at least 15 complaints regarding discrimination at the law school were made with the university’s office of civil rights and investigations, according to the order. It also states that at least 20 additional complaints were logged between 2018 and 2020.

Sanders accused Long of retaliating against her after an October 2019 campus forum featuring former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar at which a student stunned the audience by asking “whether we should consider culling or genocide as a solution to climate change.” Sanders subsequently moderated open forums with students, faculty and staff, but complained to Long when she discovered one forum was being recorded without participants being informed beforehand.

Sanders also says that her discrimination complaints were used against her in her 2019 performance review.

In February of this year, a new dean, Johanna Kalb, was announced by the law school.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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