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Business professor sues SOU over firing, battery By JOHN DARLING Business professor Suad Cox has filed a lawsuit against Southern Oregon University, charging she was fired for being a whistle-blower and asking for about $300,000 in damages. Her suit also charges business teacher Dennis Slattery with battery and asks for $30,000 in damages. Slattery, an Ashland resident, taught during the 1999-2000 school year with Cox as his immediate supervisor. The suit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court on Aug. 30, claims Slattery in November 1999 grabbed Cox's shoulders, lifted her from a chair and "propelled her" from his office. Cox also charges Slattery hit her on the arm in May 2000. The suit alleges that Slattery screamed at and demeaned Cox in a meeting with SOU Dean of Business John Laughlin the day before the November incident and that all the alleged incidents caused her to suffer extreme emotional distress. Slattery denied the allegations in an interview. "We live in a society where people can make any charges," he said. "I know in my heart what happened - and nothing happened." A spokesperson from Southern Oregon University's provost office declined to comment on the suit, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters. The suit says Cox complained about the alleged incidents to Laughlin, her supervisor, and he declined to discipline Slattery. Instead, the suit alleges, Laughlin accused her of fabricating the incident. Cox then threatened to report the alleged incidents to the police, at which time Laughlin said she would never get tenure and would be finished at SOU, the suit claims. Calls to Laughlin seeking a response to the charges were not immediately returned. After Cox called the police in May 2000, Laughlin and others generated "false and defamatory allegations that she had abused her students and other faculty members, was mentally ill or disordered and irrational and was unfit to be granted tenure," the suit charges. Cox, 60, was placed on paid leave after the police were notified. In June 2000, she was given a year's notice of termination, as required by law. Her suit asks that she be kept on as a teacher and, if not, that she be awarded the salary she would have received until her retirement at age 65. This amount, estimated at about $200,000, would be in addition to the maximum $100,000 damages allowed by Oregon law in suits against a university, said her attorney, David Force, of Eugene. "She's very strong and courageous," Force said, "but both her emotional and physical health have been severely impacted by this, and she's receiving treatment for stress-induced diabetes." Cox's suit also seeks damages against SOU for an incident earlier this year when she filed a grievance with the SOU Faculty Senate. She claimed her negative evaluation was inspired by discrimination on the basis of gender and national origin (she is of Iraqi origin). The panel told her she could not pursue a grievance as long as she sought legal remedies, the suit says. The panel did, however, rule that SOU administrators violated Cox's right to due process when she was placed on paid leave. It also ruled that administrators failed to follow the school's bylaws in handling Cox's evaluation. Laughlin hired Cox from the University of Las Vegas in 1996 to head SOU's Hotel, Restaurant and Resort Management program, with a pledge of full professorship after two years and eligibility for tenure after six years, the suit says. The representations caused her to turn down other jobs and were "false and deceptive," the suit says. The suit requests a jury trial. But Force said he hopes the parties can reach a settlement. John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected]. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.