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22A - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY,AUGUST 18,2003
NEWS
Dean vindicated; suit thrown out
By Jennifer Wellington
jwellington@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A federal court judge dismissed a lawsuit on May 9 against James Gentry, dean of journalism, and Myron "Michael" A. Kautsch, former journalism dean.
The lawsuit, brought by former journalism faculty member Michael Cuenca, alleged discrimination of race and national origin when Cuenca was denied tenure in 2000. Cuenca worked for the University from 1994 to 2001. He is Filipino and Hispanic.
"I think the ruling showed how totally weak his case was,"
journalism professor Ted Frederickson said.
U. S. District Judge Sam A. Crow found that Cuenca had failed to show any evidence that the University or the journalism deans "acted with a discriminatory motive."
Crow also ordered Cuenca to pay the University's costs for defending the lawsuit. "We're pleased that the judge determined Cuenca's case is without merit," said Lynn Bretz, director of university relations. "The University felt from the beginning that the case had no merit and that the University and its administrators treated Mr. Cuenca in a fair and equitable manner without retaliation or regard to his race or national origin."
"I think the ruling showed how totally weak his case was."
Ted Frederickson professor of journalism
Cuenca's lawsuit also alleged that an article published in The University Daily Kansan by Frederickson constituted racial harassment.
At the time of Cuenca's employment, Frederickson was chairman of the news and information sequence in the School of Journalism.
Fredrickson's article refuted Cuenca's racism claims and spoke to Cuenca missing classes he was supposed to be teaching.
The article also called into question a decision by Cuenca to cancel class and send his newspaper design class to a trial involving a discrimination lawsuit against one of his friends.
"None of the language used in the article is racially derogatory." Crow wrote in his ruling.
Gentry said he was pleased with the court's decision.
"It was obvious from the start that the allegations were without merit," he said. "So I'm pleased the court has dismissed the suit in summary judgment."
Cuenca plans to appeal the court's decision.
In his official statement, Cuenca notes that, "Crow accepted the facts that I alleged, then colored all those facts in the light most favorable to the defense."
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver will handle Cuenca's appeal.
Cuenca was hired at the University August 16, 1994, as an assistant professor of visual communications. He was employed as a tenure-track professor and was expected to teach two to three courses a semester.
Throughout the next few years, Cuenca received performance evaluations ranging from "good" to "poor to adequate."
In December 1999, the school's committee on promotion and tenure notified Cuenca that they had "voted overwhelmingly to deny" his tenure.
During the following spring semester, Cuenca missed 31 percent of his classes in one course and 37.5 percent of his classes in another course.
On March 26, 2000, the University Committee on Promotion and Tenure notified Cuenca by letter that the 2000-2001 school year would be his last as a journalism professor.
Problems still riddle KC public schools
- Edited by Richard Gintowt
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In the early 1970s, temperatures in Judy Morgan's classroom at Central High School sometimes reached 110 degrees—in the winter. Plaster fell from the walls. Water dripped from the ceiling when it rained.
The former social studies teacher, who's now president of the Kansas City School District's largest union, had as many as 40 students in some classes. The textbooks she had were so outdated and battered that she didn't bother using them. Instead, she relied on newspaper clippings and other materials to cobble together a curriculum.
Central was an all-black school back then, and the students knew race was part of the reason they were subjected to the "deplorable" conditions, Morgan said.
than $2 billion.
But soon an effort would be under way to change things. In 1977, the Kansas City School District filed a school desegregation lawsuit that would last for 26 years and cost Missouri taxpayers more
On Aug. 13, U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple closed the case that led to districtwide improvements. But an attorney for the plaintiff schoolchildren immediately filed a notice of appeal.
The old, dilapidated Central High has been replaced by a $32 million structure — the most expensive school built as part of the desegregation plan. The new building features a field house so large that two full-court basketball games can be played at once.
But the lawsuit did little — by many accounts — to improve student achievement and stem the surge of families leaving the district for better schools in the suburbs. The district's test scores remain well below the state average.
District officials say that as programs intended to improve test scores are put in place, it's unlikely that teachers, students and parents will notice any change from the lifting of court supervision.
The major difference will be that the school board and superintendent can make routine decisions
without consulting attorneys, said Patricia A. Brannan, an attorney for the school district.
Under the federal court's supervision, Brannan said, making changes to or adding an academic program would prompt consultations with attorneys and lead to stacks of paperwork.
"Yes, you still have to convince the school board and the community," she said. "But, you don't have other layers, like the plaintiffs and the courts."
Superintendent Bernard Taylor Jr. said the lawsuit needed to be filed to right the wrongs of segregation, which was rooted in both state law and economics.
Into the 1930s, the state of Missouri required separate schools for white and black students. Many rural school districts consisted of a single, one-room schoolhouse and the communities couldn't afford to offer separate facilities for blacks.
As a result, many black families moved from rural Missouri to Kansas City and St. Louis, which offered high school education for blacks, according to a history of the
Kansas City legal case written by Arthur A. Benson II, the attorney for the plaintiff schoolchildren.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education, which overturned the doctrine of "separate but equal" public institutions, the state of Missouri revised its policy. School districts could educate black and white students together — but did not have to the state said.
the Kansas City School District then tried to keep its schools segregated by redrawing school attendance boundaries so that black students would remain in all-black schools, Benson said.
The district fell into disrepair after a series of tax-increase measures failed to win approval. The school board then was taken over by a group of mothers and activists who filed the desegregation case.
In the years to come, the lawsuit was realigned and the district and state became defends and the schoolchildren remained plaintiffs. The state eventually paid $320 million to settle the lawsuit.
The Coca-Cola Foundation donated $30,000 to the Kansas University Endowment Association to establish scholarships to help students who transfer from Haskell Indian Nations University to the University of Kansas.
Coca-Cola gives $30,000 to start new scholarships
The Coca-Cola Native American Scholarship Program gives money to three students each year to help make up for the price difference between the two universities.
Students at Haskell pay $105 per semester for tuition, books, room and board, while students at the University of Kansas pay $1,763.25 for 15 credit hours of in-state tuition alone.
Marigold Linton, Director of American-Indian Outreach, said not all of the small number of students who transferred from Haskell every year made it at the
University, which made scholarships like the one from Coke were important.
"Money like the Coke money would go to the brightest and the best and would really give them a chance to succeed," she said.
The recipients of the award are Brian Yazzie, Fort Defiance, Ariz., junior; Christopher Drymon, Northpoint, Ala., sophomore; and Felicia Impson, Supai, Ariz., junior.
While the students benefit from a more rigorous education, the University benefits from the cultural diversity their presence offers. Linton said.
The Coke endowment will count toward the Endowment Association's goal of raising $500 million for KU First by 2004.
Bob Perkins
University of Kansas Libraries
Fall 2003 Orientation Tours
Anschutz Library (864-4930)
Tuesday, August 19 1:00 p.m.
Wednesday, August 20 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, August 28 1:00 p.m.
Tuesday, September 2 9:00 a.m.
Art and Architecture Library (864-3020)
Level 1, Spencer Museum of Art
Monday, August 18 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, August 20 10:00 a.m.
Spencer research Library (864-4334)
Monday, August 18 10:00 a.m.
Tuesday, August 19 2:00 p.m.
Watson Library (864-8991)
Monday, August 18 11:00 a.m., noon &1:00 p.m.
Tuesday, August 19 1:00 p.m. & 3:00 p.m.
Wednesday, August 20 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. & 1:00 p.m.
Monday, September 8 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday, September 16 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, September 21 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, September 25 10:00 a.m.
Wednesday, October 1 noon
Monday, October 6 7:00 p.m.
www.lib.ku.edu
Libraries Feature
Wireless Laptops for check out in Watson and Anschutz Libraries
- Microsoft Office on Public workstations
- Photoshop and Dreamweaver on special Gateway computers
- Coffee service in Anschutz Library
- KU Info will now have a walk up service in the Anschutz Library. They will continue to give the same great phone service at (785) 864-3506.
Hawk Help
Online: HawkHelp LIVE Chat with library staff for answers to your questions. Available to Ku students, staff, and faculty.
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