Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1980 [PAGE 432]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1979]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

421

vember 15, Chicago Circle campus; December 12, Medical Center campus. He also announced that an executive session had been requested and would be convened after die meeting.

RECESS AND EXECUTIVE SESSION

Following a short recess, the board reconvened in executive session and considered the following items of business:

Litigation Initiated by Willie Warren Craft and Louis A. DeSalle, III

(37) A complaint has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Case No. 79 C 3521) by Willie Warren Craft and Louis A. DeSalle, I I I , former medical students in the University of Illinois College of Medicine. The named defendants include the University, fourteen University employees sued in their official and individual capacities, the Illinois director of the Department of Registration and Education, Patricia Roberts Harris in her capacity as secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and Ernest L. Boyer in his capacity as commissioner of education of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The complaint is in four counts and alleges that the plaintiffs were deprived of civil and constitutional rights by actions of the University and its employees in denying the plaintiffs a degree of Doctor of Medicine solely because of failure to pass a senior "comprehensive" or "qualifying" examination. The complaint also asks that the University be enjoined from admitting and certifying students under the "Fifth Pathway Program" pursuant to an Illinois statute which the plaintiffs allege is unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. The complaint further seeks to enjoin the federal defendants from contributing federal funds to the University on the grounds that the same are used by the University and its employees to carry on unlawful acts and practices. In addition to declaratory and injunctive relief, in each of Counts I and IV Plaintiff Craft seeks recovery of $120,000 compensatory damages, $5,000,000 punitive damages and costs, and Plantiff DeSalle seeks recovery of $180,000 compensatory damages, $5,000,000 punitive damages, and costs. Count I of the complaint alleges that the plaintiffs are black citizens who are qualified and entitled to receive the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Illinois but for alleged intentional and unlawful acts perpetrated upon them by the University and its employees (in their official and individual capacities) because of the plaintiffs' race, thereby depriving them of rights secured by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It is alleged that commencing in September 1972 the plaintiffs were enrolled and subsequently matriculated through the Minority Opportunity Program then existing at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, which program was funded in part by federal funds. The complaint further alleges that because of their race since their enrollment plaintiffs have been intentionally denied equal services, treatment, training, and other benefits offered by the College of Medicine and certain of its employees, which employees "created, fostered, a n d / o r continued an atmosphere of hostility, negativism, and antibJack feelings toward plaintiffs as black medical students." It is alleged that certain; University employees manifested dislike and animosity for plaintiffs and disparaged them because of their race, and intentionally denied plaintiffs because of their race various University services, access to programs and assistance related to their status: as black medical students, all in violation of their contract of enrollment with the University. Count I alleges that each plaintiff successfully completed all course requirements of the University's College of Medicine, except for passing the University's senior certifying examination, and has successfully completed Parts I and II of the