University Wins Promotion Case Filed by Disgruntled Professor Over Discrimination 

Labor Landscape

A federal judge recently sided with Penn State in a lawsuit by a tenured associate professor at a commonwealth campus who claimed he was wrongfully denied a promotion, granting the university’s request to rule in its favor as a matter of law.  

U.S. Circuit Judge D. Michael Fisher’s 29-page ruling gave Penn State a victory before a potential trial.     

He found Penn State Behrend associate professor of electrical engineering  Sudarshan Nelatury failed to allege sufficient evidence to support his claims of discrimination, retaliation and breach of contract. Fisher also found the university had legitimate reasons for not promoting Nelatury to full professor.  

There was “simply a disagreement,’’ the judge wrote, between Nelatury and the university about  the merits of his academic work, his teaching abilities and academic needs at the campus near Erie.   

“That disagreement does not warrant a trial,’’ Fisher wrote.  The university directed media to read about the case specifics in public documents.  

In those public documents, the university did not hold back in its explanation of why it denied Nelatury’s  “unjustified’’ request to be promoted to full professor.  

The university’s attorneys said Nelatury’s quality of research and journal publications significantly declined in the years after he became an associate professor and received tenure. They also said his teaching performance was “inconsistent.’’  

Nelatury – who is Asian, of Indian national origin and in his 60s – alleged he was not recommended for a promotion because of discrimination, but Penn State cast those claims as meritless.  

“Dr. Nelatury was not recommended for promotion based on significant concerns about his performance as a teacher and the declining and low quality of his research and scholarship expressed by every committee and individual who evaluated him as part of the promotion process,” Penn State’s attorneys wrote in a February filing. “None of those concerns had anything to do with his sex, national origin or age, or that he had complained about discrimination.’’ 

Nelatury had argued in his lawsuit that his publication record trumped that of even the chancellor  and department chair, but that claim also failed to hold up against scrutiny.  

A school committee made up of three professors that functioned as the first four levels of review found Nelatury’s teaching record to be “mixed.’’  There was high variability among student reviews of teaching effectiveness. Many of the lower scores were from introductory and lower-division courses, the judge wrote in his ruling.  The committee found Nelatury effectively taught top students, but was unable to connect with almost half of them – “a major weakness.’’ Nelatury declined to comment.  

Nationwide public and private universities are under the gun when it comes to promotion and tenure issues. More than 10 U.S. states have been considering broader reductions to tenure protections. Some university leaders have said tenure prevents them from responding quickly enough to budget crisis or the need to offer students new academic programs.  

While West Virginia University hasn’t banned tenure its flagship university axed tenured faculty members last academic year as part of a larger plan for layoffs and program cuts.   

“Academic tenure is becoming a rarer form of appointment in the United States,’’ said Michael Spring,  a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Computing and Information.   

 “Put in simple terms, the demand for advanced study in traditional studies such as literature, languages, and such has declined while the demand for study in new fields such as energy, supply chains, and medical specialities has increased. Hiring non-tenure, or contingent faculty and part-time rather than full time faculty makes it easier to reduce faculty in areas where demand has decreased and hire new faculty in areas that  have increased, ‘’ said Spring.  

“The situation is complex in that it impacts various types of institutions differently,’’ Spring added. Colleges and universities are also facing the reality of fewer students which means the need for fewer professors. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), which says that the number of 18-year-olds nationwide who graduate from high school each year – and are therefore candidates for college – will erode by 13 percent, or nearly half a million, by 2041.  

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