The news that David Protess agreed under the extreme duress of an illegitimate suspension to take a leave of absence in the Spring Quarter should not cause anyone to ease up the pressure on the Northwestern administration. We should demand an explanation for why the administration violated the Faculty Handbook and the rules of the University in suspending Protess from his class.

In the decades that I’ve spent studying academic freedom, I’ve never encountered a case where a university of Northwestern’s prestige has violated a faculty member’s due process rights so completely as this administration has.

The faculty should be outraged at this violation of shared governance and due process, and angry to learn that they can be banned from their classes, their labs and their offices at the whim of an administrator. Students should be appalled to learn that they pay vast sums of tuition money only to have their faculty removed from classes for unknown reasons at the last minute.

Administrators need to file formal charges of misconduct and prove to the satisfaction of a faculty committee that Protess intentionally engaged in unethical conduct that violates the fundamental rules of Northwestern. Then they need to show this alleged misconduct is directly relevant to Protess’ qualifications as a professor and so extreme that it would outweigh all of the positive reviews of Protess’ teaching and research as to require something virtually unknown in the history of Northwestern University: the termination of a tenured professor.

Northwestern administrators must immediately provide clear and convincing evidence that Protess committed a serious academic crime. Their failure to do so can only lead to the conclusion that this suspension had no legitimate basis and must end now.

-John K. Wilson

Editor, Illinois Academe