Secure Your Rights As a Faculty Member
Since the 1980s, our firm has played a prominent role in defending the employment rights of college and university faculty. In the landmark case of Brown v. Trustees of Boston University, we won tenure and reinstatement for Professor Julia Prewitt Brown, who had been denied tenure by her university’s administration as a consequence of sex discrimination.
We have represented dozens of faculty in tenure cases. In addition to fighting race, age, sex, national origin, and other forms of discrimination and harassment in cases of tenure and hiring and promotion, we have brought challenges to institutional violations of professors’ contractual rights and to attacks on academic freedom. We advise faculty whose programs are closing, or who face dismissal for other reasons, and conduct negotiations over severance and retirement benefits.
Often, we are able to settle faculty issues without litigating, for example, by utilizing a college’s grievance procedure. Other times, we have worked through state or federal agencies and courts to vindicate faculty rights. Many times, we can help faculty members simply by providing legal advice. We also work with faculty in labor unions, in both the public and private sectors, supporting efforts to establish and maintain collective bargaining rights where they are available.
If you teach at an institution of higher education, we can help with employment-related issues. Contact us.