Date: 17 Apr 2005 23:28:06 -0000
Message-ID: <20050417232806.30309.qmail@cr.yp.to>
Automatic-Legal-Notices: See http://cr.yp.to/mailcopyright.html.
From: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@math.uic.edu>
To: ccomer@uic.edu
Subject: violations of tenure statutes
References: <20050412174810.44546.qmail@cr.yp.to>

The University Ethics Officer, attempting to extort various actions out
of me, has threatened me with dismissal at the beginning of June, and
with various sanctions short of dismissal starting at the beginning of
May. That's two weeks from now, barely enough time to prepare a lawsuit.

Any imposition of those sanctions would breach my employment contract,
and would violate the tenure protections in the University of Illinois
Statutes. I think that the courts will regard the mere _threat_ of
sanctions as a violation of the tenure protections.

The University Ethics Officer's action can be traced to an error by the
Office of the University Counsel. The Office of the University Counsel
was responsive at first but has been completely unwilling to answer
various questions that I sent on 2 April, more than two weeks ago.

Early last week I asked you to ask the Office of the University Counsel
to answer my questions. I was expecting you to send them email, cc me,
asking them to answer my questions. But I haven't heard anything from
you, or from them.

I'd hate to assume that you're condoning a violation of the university's
tenure protections. Perhaps you did contact the lawyers and simply
neglected to let me know. The bottom line, in any case, is that they
still haven't answered my questions.

This lack of responsiveness, in the context of extortion, is an outrage.
Please send me email confirming that you've kicked the lawyers and that
they've promised to answer all of my questions early this week.

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago