Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1980 [PAGE 92]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

82

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[September 20

tion with its determination to issue a notice of nonreappointment to the plaintiff and in connection with the plaintiff's grievance with respect thereto, that the plaintiff was not treated equally with other members of the faculty, and that the defendants violated substantive and procedural due process requirements in acting upon the plaintiff's employment status and grievance. T h e university counsel has requested that he be authorized to take such steps as are necessary or appropriate, including the employment of special counsel, to protect the interests of the University in the matter and to provide representation for those University employees who request the same and represent that actions, if any, taken by them in connection with the matters alleged in the complaint were taken in their capacities as University employees. I concur.

The student advisory vote was: Aye, Miss Kooper, Mr. Sobotka, Mr. Watson; no, none. On motion of Mr. Neal, authority was given as requested by the following vote: Aye, Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Hahn, Mr. Howard, Mr. Lenz, Mr. Livingston, Mr. Neal, Mrs. Rader, Mrs. Shepherd, Mr. Velasquez; no, none; absent, Governor Thompson.

Litigation Related to Rice Foundation

(41) The Board of Trustees has previously authorized the institution and defense of litigation relating to the Rice Foundation and to the estates of Daniel and Ada Rice, in which the University and other medical schools and their medical students may have interests. The vice president for administration and the university counsel have been representing the University in settlement discussions with the various litigants. They report that there has been substantial progress and that the Appellate Court for the Second District has scheduled a conference at which the possibility of settlement will be discussed; it may become necessary for settlement decisions to be made on short notice. Accordingly, I recommend that settlement of the litigation be authorized on such terms as may be approved by the members of the Executive Committee of the board.

On motion of Mr. Livingston, this recommendation was approved.

Litigation Initiated by Dr. Nicholas G. Grand

(42) A complaint has been filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Case No. 78C 3724) by Dr. Nicholas G. Grand, a former tenured professor of oral pathology at the Medical Center campus whose retirement at age sixty-eight was not deferred by the University. In addition to the University the defendants include the elected members of the Board of Trustees, President Corbally, Vice President Yankwich, Chancellor Begando, Vice Chancellor Grove, Dean Yale, and Department Head Waterhouse. Also named as defendants are the State Universities Retirement System, its trustees, and certain of its employees. T h e suit purports to be a class action on behalf of the plaintiff and all members of the educational staff of the University of Illinois who have attained the age of sixty-eight and who have been or will be required to retire on September 1, 1978, and subsequent years immediately following their sixty-eighth birthday. It is alleged that the mandatory retirement provisions of the State Universities Retirement Act deprive the plaintiff of equal protection of law in that the age classification does not have a reasonable relationship to articulable and identifiable state purpose and does not justify the disparity in due process procedures between employees over age sixty-eight and those under age sixty-eight. T h e complaint seeks a