Monday, May 5, 2008

End Of Teacher Tenure 2


Greetings - Thanks for viewing this blog. Feel free to post comments. BBG.
This post describes below a situation involving the illegal 1982 termination of a tenured full professor from Eastern Michigan University by use of a cited "Plan of Action" in a documented criminal conspiracy as the method of choice by 4-5 Michigan officials. This matter constituted massive fraud against an individual by an instrumentality of the State of Michigan, therefore by the State of Michigan itself. See also full text below and at the end for a key, proof-document - the "Infamous Collins Memo of 6/23/81". The chart image immediately herebelow details the estimated calculations for the unpaid back salary corrected for inflation and interest coming to a total estimate over $500 Million as of the end of the 2010-2011 school year. Right click or Double click on this image to view it in a more readable form. The same applies to the image of the end Collins Memo.
Comment and EXCEL spreadsheet estimate chart just below renewed by BBG, Monday, 03212011, ca.,12:18 AM.






















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The End of Teacher Tenure
By Bruce B. Graves, Ph. D.
Second Draft, Saturday, 04262008

Teacher tenure has long protected teachers at all levels from being fired or otherwise disciplined for frivolous reasons and to protect academic freedom as long outlined by the stated principles of the American Association of University Professors [AAUP]. Teacher tenure has historically been in place for teachers in K-12 as well as in universities and can be referenced in many laws as well. Termination of a tenured teacher by the AAUP standards can only be done for a serious cause such as the closing of a program, financial exigency, lack of resources, in cases of moral turpitude, and perhaps with other serious causes such as when a teacher might be convicted of a crime or jailed, instances that might fall under the moral turpitude rule anyway. Reference is made to relevant AAUP documents and extant laws.

The end of teacher tenure is without doubt a goal of many employers desirous of changing the employment standards for teachers to be similar to that of most other employees in the workforce, these hired only at the discretion, whim, or pleasure of the employer and who may be terminated at any time often even without cause. This would greatly simplify the removal of teachers avoiding the lengthy and often costly process involved in removing tenured teachers, perhaps losses in lengthy lawsuits, and especially when there is not good reason for such removal such as those for irrelevant or unjustified political, religious, or personal biases. The specific situation described here may be seen by some as only one isolated instance of the illicit denial of tenure, however the methods used here could be easily applied to any tenured K-12 or university teacher thus making this case particularly significant as a detailed and documented methodological example of the absolute universality of these labor crimes in the ultimate establishment moves toward the removal of teacher tenure as a protective employment condition.

The university in this exposé is identified here as Eastern Michigan University [EMU] which was centrally involved in my illegal termination in and around 1982 from a tenured, full professorship in the Chemistry Department. I had been employed at EMU from about 1968 starting as assistant, then associate, and later as a full professor around 1974 when I received tenure. I was hired by department head Clark G. Spike primarily to teach physical chemistry but then also analytical chemistry as well later related courses, e.g., instrumental analysis, and scientific glassblowing. Full truth being the desired basis for this note, all statements herein are solidly based on or rationally derived from documentation in the record to which deference is given in any remote instances of error.

The illicit, but universally applicable method EMU used here was to illegally transmit my private university personnel file to an outside forensic psychologist licensed by the State of Michigan, a Dr. Russell C. Petrella at the Michigan Ypsilanti Forensic Center. This was in total violation of the EMU-AAUP contract and without my required knowledge or consent, actions I would have refused as violations of this faculty contract. The AAUP did nothing about this - not a good union - probably of the sweetheart variety. I include below a critical document [&&& The infamous 6/23/81 Collins Memo] proving a criminal conspiracy occurred among five persons, at least four of them being EMU officials, therefore officials by derivation of the State of Michigan. The "plan of action" agreed to as noted therein was without doubt one to proceed with Petrella's actions and the derived consequential "legal" actions.

Petrella twisted information in my personnel file to write a false, five-page "psychological analysis" [his words] of me without ever talking to me, but only to my detractors. He was paid $65/hour by EMU. EMU then converted Petrella's "hypothetical" statements as his opinions into what was later termed "legal fact" in Court action to remove me from campus with a Court injunction. My office and research properties were seized and sequestered so I had no access, presumably in case I wanted to use them for legal action. Petrella referred to the danger of my suicide which I read for the first time in Court papers served on me in my public neighborhood in broad daylight by armed EMU police in an EMU squad car. They took my faculty ID and keys. This crude action, without doubt concocted to save EMU of public embarrassment, was tantamount to commanding me to commit suicide. This comes from my being under the extant conditions of intense duress and official Court/Police/Psychologist intimidation, this presenting a most powerful and irresistible force of suggestion that to commit suicide was my only option. In Petrella's criminal "psychological analysis" he additionally opined that I "might be a danger to myself or others" or words to that effect suggesting in context that I might need to be involuntarily confined or committed.

As a research scientist, my commitment was to science, not just "the job" I had as Petrella wrongly assumed. Many weaker persons with low self esteem would have done just what he proposed, however I was emotionally too strong and eventually understood what was really going on. In addressing these forces in retrospect, this action amounted to an attempted murder by power of suggestion to commit suicide by state officials. Nobody can argue about this reality as I am the only person having experienced it in being so singled out for illegal termination. It is this action which first caused me to realize my social contract had been seriously violated by the state and that I was no longer a full citizen.

However, I was subsequently granted the "Right to Sue" by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC].
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U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), The agency of the United States Government that enforces the federal employment discrimination laws. Information about discrimination on the basis of age, . . . . www.eeoc.gov/, Contact Your Local Field Office, How to File a Charge, Laws Overview, National Contact Center, Discriminatory Practices, Retaliation, Sexual Harassment, Disability
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This was during the Reagan presidency when the tendency of government systems to take such actions on behalf of victims became significantly restricted leaving the onus and expense of filing such lawsuits instead with the victims. EEOC should have up taken this suit against EMU, but I had to do it and "lost" without adequate legal counsel. This complex trial was conducted by U.S. District Judge, Charles A. Joiner who failed to allow a jury trial [a Constitutional violation] and his US Magistrate Judge, Steven D. Pepe, who made statements to me tantamount to malfeasance of office and obstruction of justice. In this, he failed to reconstitute the trial using false arguments about his wife regarding tenure, e.g, the closing of a program, eliminating a teaching position, or perhaps even "financial exigency". Pepe emphasized these points even when at EMU no program was closed, nor any position eliminated, nor was there any "financial exigency". Pepe dismissed any suggestion to reconstitute the suit by using the "whole cloth" argument, words that meant starting over, which he argued would inconvenience EMU lawyers. It should have been a juried criminal trial and instead was a civil trial by only the judge without a constitutionally required jury.

Mixed into these affairs, was another ruinous operation in progress with my church. I am a birthright Friend [Quaker]. I was in the mid 1970's even the Clerk of the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting [AAFM]. This group received a false rumor from EMU through its economics Professor James S. Magee who was apparently under some pressure from his friend in the department, an AAUP grievance officer at the time [Karen E. Lindenberg] to "get to friends of [mine]" regarding my situation then at EMU, suggesting maybe my church. After a secret quasi-investigation, again only with my detractors, Magee related this false rumor he had concocted to AAFM member Dr. David R. Bassett [the person I have mentioned elsewhere as a sociopath and was an M.D. at the University of Michigan]. Bassett and probably Magee formed a powerful political force within the official AAFM committee called the "Committee on Ministry and Counsel" [M&C] and managed from all outward appearances to get that committee to wrongly conclude I was mentally ill. This Bassett/Magee energy was also directed secretly to my wife through clandestine breakfasts with her, she thus being similarly convinced and still is to some degree. The end result of the M&C action was to get Bassett to meet with me [I refused at first as none of Bassett's business but my wife pressured me to comply] to tell me the contents of this rumor and essentially to require my "therapy" by a psychiatrist in order to maintain my reality in the AAFM.

This meeting and statement by Bassett was tape-recorded by me for posterity as I had become deeply suspicious from my wife's behavior that something fishy was going on for the first time at this meeting. This audio recording needs to be converted to digital so it can be shared along with many other of these materials on an appropriate website. Bassett indicated around this time that he was highly concerned about the "image" of the AAFM and about the effects my situation at EMU might have on this AAFM public image. It would thus have been simpler for the AAFM to say I was ill rather than to admit something was wrong at EMU or the AAFM just as it would have been simpler for EMU itself to say I had committed suicide rather than that EMU had such serious problems. By the AAUP standards for tenure and possibly medical ethics, Bassett could have been in principle terminated for moral turpitude here or for other rationales it would seem, but this never happened.

The distorted particulars in this false rumor seem to implicate further an art professor, David D. Tammany, who later became an administrator in the EMU Department of Human Resources because of his expert handling of labor issues. There had been an occasion where I had previously filed some sort of grievance at EMU under EMU-AAUP rules. At the time, Tammany was my union grievance officer. He and I worked very hard to formulate materials for an upcoming hearing of record at that time. Probably because of some hearing deadline, there was one time when I had to go to Tammany's AAUP office across the EMU campus at night. It was raining and I wore a raincoat and rode my bicycle there as using a car would have been slow and very circuitous. I biked home later when the meeting was over. When heard, the false rumor of concern here is very obviously derived from this meeting, but seriously distorted to become deleterious to my character and something totally foreign to what actually occurred. The responsibility for this distortion could be anyone from Tammany to any others to whom he might have related this event. It is also noted that the EMU-AAUP systematically failed to record grievance meetings for the record. The record also suggests that Bassett too had conducted a clandestine investigation of me in the background. On one occasion he felt that my desire to be let out of his car one evening supported his distorted opinions.

I was forced to engage in months and months of "therapy" from these events and pressures, in the last analysis most notably by my wife. No mental illness was ever found as finally documented in writing from the last therapist seen, a highly competent, well respected, and Board Certified Clinical Psychologist. Therapy sessions were terminated by my wife not for this reason, but because she tired of paying for them. This contrasts with one of the first psychiatrists seen [Dr. Lyle M. Allis] who refused payment for a session because he said my problems were legal, not psychiatric, a professional opinion my wife rejected doubtless due to the AAFM and Bassett's incompetent influence upon her.

Over many years, this affair caused me to be expelled from the AAFM finally by a court order as a permanent injunction. This appears to be a violation of the 1st Amendment since I am now prevented from practicing my religion by a secular judge who decided on this injunction about an essentially theological debate within the church. This debate involved previous physical exclusions from the Meeting house and from the Meetings for Worship and for Business. There was even one instance where four men carried me out of the Meeting House bodily [I went into the pacifist limp body] even though I had been sitting completely silently in the Meeting for Business. This event so frightened a small child with her mother there that she cried and for which I was later blamed in the AAFM records. The child was most certainly frightened by what the four men were actively doing in hauling me bodily out of the room as in a violent movie, not me. I was doing nothing. Any competent psychologist would conclude the same, except for her psychologist mother holding her.

This exclusion in its various forms was doubtless partly because of my vocal ministry in the silent worship periods, and this despite the fact that all of my vocal ministry always followed exactly the standard Quaker protocols. Many of these instances were tape recorded for the record and are expected to be posted on a future website as digital audio files. Then there was a period in the mid-to-late 1980's when I immersed myself in a series of religion courses at the University of Michigan where I was a Visiting Scholar. These courses, and the religion papers I wrote for them, led me finally to the conclusion that it was wrong, even a sin, for me to have been forced out of the AAFM without any debate. This then led to these instances of vocal ministry and justified picketing. It is of note that the newspaper ads and other printed materials changed from "Everyone Welcome" to omission of this phrase. The "Meeting for Business" name was also changed to "Meeting for Worship for Business" from these events.

The actions by the AAFM in being through an official AAFM committee and created by the linkage to the EMU conspiracy through Magee, these AAFM actions then appear to make the AAFM technically a co-conspirator with EMU in this whole affair.

Many appeals have been made to Michigan officials, e.g., the Governor and her Education Specialist assistant including the Michigan Attorney General. In citing these Crimes of State here, these officials are in my view clearly guilty of obstruction of justice since since they have done nothing substantive, using only diversionary tactics. The matter remains unresolved for the past 26 years. Work with congresspersons in Washington is also in progress. My conservatively estimated back salary and interest since 1982 are now estimated at over $10M - over $50M corrected for inflation. Even if only by my successors it is ultimately planned with these funds to create a permanent library, museum, and research facility to document this affair for human rights interests, scholars, historians, et al., and to resume the research, arts, and other work related to me in progrress at EMU at the time these were heinously and wrongfully truncated in this State of Michigan fiasco.

The simplest theory that may explain these events is the possible existence of professional jealousy at EMU and something similar at the AAFM. There may have been other unknown factors at work possibly even within the government, or related to my reputation as a pacifist, this being consistent with my lifelong religion in a classic peace church [Quakers]. Sources of these possible jealousies or ego problems of others' perceptions may stem from my skills as a teacher and in electrochemical research at EMU. Here, then, immediately after joining EMU I obtained as sole investigator, Grants for Scientific Research from the National Science Foundation [NSF]. This was in a classic mediocre university environment where engagement in such research activity was at the time almost totally foreign. I had had, e.g., to train the EMU accountants in how to submit the NSF application for the first of these research grants. Publications in juried journals [see below] resulted from this work that further involved the creation of a unique laboratory for the study of thermal events in electrochemical transformations. Typical temperature variations, e.g. in the "hydrogen region" on platinum black, would typically be of the order of few thousandths of a degree C.

Another factor here may have been that many professional chemists in university tend to hate physical chemistry because it is a complex and difficult subject area. This could in principal translate into hating the phycical chemistry teacher, this being exactly the situation in which I was immersed. I first joined EMU to avoid the "Publish or Perish" syndrome feeling that I wanted only to devote my research talents to science without these pressures. I found in this experience, however, a totally obscure and different "Perish" method.

Finally, we have a brief an explanatory note about violations of the social contract mentioned above. In normal contract law as instructed by Magistrate Pepe above, minor violations of a contract can often be repaired by renegotiating specific contract terms without voiding the whole contract. However, a serious violation of a contract voids the entire contract so it must be completely renegotiated. In the instant matter, the contract at issue is the social contract between the state and each of its citizens. This social contract provides certain benefits [like police and fire protection, etc.] to the citizen in exchange for the citizen being under the jurisdiction of the state, its laws, etc. In this specific case here, that social contract was seriously violated by the state in 1982 thus nullifying that person's social contract thereafter, if not completely, then at least in proportion to the seriousness of the violation by the state crimes. This would mean the state has lost jurisdiction over this particular citizen, if not completely, then at least up to that proportional state crime level of attempted murder to cause a state suicide. In exchange for this loss of jurisdiction over the citizen, the citizen is also no longer bound to requirements of the laws of the state. In this example, since the state illegally and permanently removed all sources of earnings capability from the citizen, in so doing thus losing its taxing authority and jurisdiction under its tax laws and assessments, then that citizen in exchange is totally free of any burden to comply with those tax laws. This situation remains in effect until the state and the citizen can renegotiate a renewed and replaced, full citizenship. This social contract argument would doubtless apply to many victims of state abuse who have lost all or most of their citizenship through similar "Crimes of State".

A website is planned to make this matter widely accessible to others, but help is needed for this project. I hope this note here helps in the interim.

References

Some published research and papers at EMU:

Bruce B. Graves, Analytical Chemistry, 44, 993-1002 (May 1972), "Differential Voltammetric Scanning Thermometry of Tenth Formal Formaldehyde Solution in Formal Perchloric Acid", (NSF "Grants for Scientific Research" #GP-11496", at EMU, Principal Investigator, BBG)

Bruce B. Graves, Review of Scientific Instruments, 44 #5, 571-2 (May 1973), "A Thermistor Bimetal Thermocouple Hemisphere Electrode for Simultaneous Electrochemical/DTA Measurements", (NSF "Grants for Scientific Research" #GP-11496", #GP-28583, at EMU, Principal Investigator, BBG)

Invited paper: Bruce B. Graves (ECS Life Member), "Proceedings of the Symposium on ELECTROCATALYSIS" (May 13-15, 1974), edited by Manfried W. Breiter, General Electric Company, Corporate Research & Development, Schenectady, NY, pp. 365-372, "Recent Applications of Thermal Methods to Electrochemistry", The Electrochemical Society, Physical Electrochemical Division, P.O.Box 2071, Princeton, NJ 80540, (NSF "Grants for Scientific Research" #GP-11496", #GP-28583, at EMU, Principal Investigator, BBG)

Invited [Hubbard/Hawaii] paper: Bruce B. Graves, "First Chemical Congress of the North American Continent" (November 30 - December 5, 1975), "IODINE/IODIDE DIFFERENTIAL VOLTAMMETRIC SCANNING THERMOMETRY", Abstract #27, Mexico City, Mexico, (NSF "Grants for Scientific Research" #GP-11496", at EMU, Principal Investigator, BBG)

Philip J. Elving [Deceased] & Bruce B, Graves, (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), "Topics in Bioelectrochemistry & Bioenergetics", Vol. 3, G. Milazzo, Ed. (Instituto Superiore Di Sanita, Rome, Italia), John Wiley & Sons (London), 1978, pp. 1-92, "Activation Energy: Nature, Determination, Significance" [I wrote most of the physical-chemistry energetics material. Elving wrote most of the organic-electrochemical material.

&&& The infamous 6/23/81 Collins Memo [image]:


















Notes of 6/23/81: "AHE" = Anthony H. Evans, an EMU VP; "RWC" = Ronald W. Collins, EMU Assoc. VP for Academic Affairs, "CDS" = Carolyn D. Spatta, an EMU official, possibly a VP; "AWD" is unidentified at this writing; "Ron Santo" = EMU counsel

END of second draft, 04262008, BBG


Tried to understand how to edit this post. BBG as of Sunday, 03062011.




Tried to understand how to edit this post as of Sunday, 03062011, BBG.














03062011.====================================================================


Above is Green's July27, 1982 letter hiring Petrella.







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2 Comments:

At May 7, 2008 at 3:43 AM , Blogger Kristen said...

Really nice to see you up and running, Bruce.

cheers
Kristen

 
At December 19, 2008 at 1:51 PM , Blogger Dawn Nelson said...

you are a strong man Bruce.

Thank you for speaking out on this.

 

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