Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1978 [PAGE 534]

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1978]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

521

RECESS AND EXECUTIVE SESSION Following a short recess, the board reconvened in executive session and considered the following items of business: Litigation Initiated by S. K. Panda (18) A complaint has been filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division (Case No. 78C 9 3 ) , by S. K. Panda, a former student at the Medical Center campus who was dropped for reason of poor scholarship from the postgraduate program of the Department of Orthodontics. Prior to the initiation of the suit the plaintiff invoked the University and campus grievance procedures, and his grievance was denied. T h e defendants include the University and certain of its employees (President John E. Corbally, Chancellor Joseph S. Begando, Dean Seymour Yale, Associate Dean Robert B. Underwood, Department Head John F. Cleall, and Associate University Counsel Norman P. Jeddeloh), who are sued both individually and in their official capacities. The complaint, which is in two counts, purports to be a class action. T h e class is described as consisting of all Illinois people who are students and who are unlawfully and discriminatorily subjected to harassment, invasion of privacy, threats, and unlawful treatment by the defendants, resulting in the unlawful, wrongful, and continuing invasion of civil rights. It is alleged that all defendants have violated the plaintiff's civil and constitutional rights. T h e specific allegations of Count I of the complaint relate to the plaintiff's academic experiences at the University, charge deficiencies in the hearing procedures and prejudgments on his grievance matter, and assert that plaintiff is being denied fundamental civil rights. Count I seeks an injunction against the University suspending plaintiff until first providing him procedural safeguards, an order expunging all records of his grievance and requiring the University to provide him tutors, and a declaration that the "internal code of the University concerning procedural due process is unconstitutional and void." In addition, Count I seeks damages in the amount of $786,000, together with costs and attorneys' fees. Count I I alleges that the plaintiff has made a complaint of racial discrimination on which no action has been taken and asks the court to mandate the University to provide a hearing on the racial discrimination charge under procedures established by the court. Count I I also seeks costs and attorneys' fees. The 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 alleged to have been taken by them in the matter were taken in their capacities as University employees. I concur. T h e student advisory vote w a s : Aye, Miss Conlon, M r . Overstreet, Miss W i n t e r ; no, none. O n motion of M r . Livingston, authority was given as requested by the following vote: Aye, M r . Forsyth, M r . H a h n , M r . Howard, M r . Lenz, M r . Livingston, M r . Neal, Mrs. Rader, M r . Velasquez; no, n o n e ; absent, Mrs. Shepherd, Governor Thompson. (Mrs. Shepherd had left at the conclusion of the regular meeting.) Litigation Initiated by the Rice Foundation (19) A complaint in chancery seeking injunction and other relief has been filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois (Case No. 77CH 8 8 0 3 ) , by the Rice Foundation and certain individuals claiming to be members of the foundation's