An attorney and expert on anti-discrimination laws in higher education will speak to the faculty on the application of state and federal anti-discrimination laws in the academic environment this Thursday, upon the request of Provost Marty Krauss.Krauss said she chose to bring Daryl Lapp of the firm Edwards, Angell, Palmer and Dodge because faculty members told her last year that they do not understand anti-discrimination law and how it is applied in various cases.

The comments made to Krauss by faculty members followed an incident last fall involving students' complaints about potentially discriminatory speech in their classroom. The incident led to months of discussion, without a solution, between the Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities and the administration regarding the authority of each party when dealing with faculty grievances.

Prof. Eric Hill (THA), who served on the Faculty Senate and Faculty Council last year and this year, said that last year the Faculty Senate wanted to bring in a panel of speakers with a diversity of opinions to discuss issues of discrimination, but the event never took place because it took too long to schedule. He said the Faculty Senate is looking into bringing more people to talk about this issue this year.

Hill said that because Krauss single-handedly chose Lapp, he thinks this could give her a bad appearance and reinforce the idea that she is the sole decider, one of the issues brought up during discussions last year.

Lapp said his speech does not relate to any particular incident at the University, and he has not litigated any cases for Brandeis.

Last October Prof. Donald Hindley (POL) received word from Krauss that he might have violated the University's Harassment and Non-discrimination policy, which is not part of the Faculty Handbook, for potentially racially insensitive speech. Krauss placed a monitor in Hindley's class throughout the fall semester until she closed the case in January.

The Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities, chaired last year by Prof. Richard Gaskins (POL), heard Hindley's appeal in November and deemed the administration's sanctions, including the monitor, excessive. The committee said administrators did not follow proper procedural rules under the "Non-Discrimination and Harassment Problem Resolution and Appeal Procedure," which is part of the University's Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy, including failure to mediate an informal resolution.

Prof. Marc Brettler (NEJS), who chaired the Faculty Senate last year, told the Justice last week that a part of the problem with the Non-Discrimination and Harassment policy that it "was not clear enough" about how to reach an informal resolution on harassment or discrimination issues. The Faculty Senate revoked its approval of this policy last year on the grounds that it was not being properly executed.

Krauss overruled the CFRR's decision in December and said "the Committee's jurisdiction is limited to interpreting the provisions of the Handbook," and that this case concerned the Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy.

She told the Justice last week that there was an "honest difference of opinion" on what the Handbook says to do and said she had to make certain legal decisions, which she could not specify.

In March the Faculty Senate passed a resolution supporting an interpretation of the Faculty Handbook, which said that Section VI.D.7.a "does not mean that the interpretive authority of the CFRR is limited only to the Faculty Handbook." This section was amended in May to include that the CFRR acts "on behalf of the faculty" when interpreting provisions of the Handbook.

At this time the CFRR stopped hearing faculty grievances until there was a "reaffirmation by the Senate and by the administration of shared principles of faculty governance." In April it said it would not hear grievances until the administrators and the faculty "agree[d] on the basic interpretations of procedural rules."

The fact that there is no clear answer about what to do with faculty grievances shows the urgency of the matter, Brettler told the Justice last week. If a grievance comes up, "we're in trouble."

Discussions between the CFRR and the administration reached an impasse in May when the CFRR reported at the May 15 Faculty Meeting that Krauss and Jaffe "are looking for maximum flexibility and discretion" in interpreting the rules.

"I respect the Faculty Handbook," Krauss told the Justice last week, but she said there are times when it's clear and times when it is not.

Hill said Krauss must explain her actions when her decisions defer from rules of the Handbook.

Krauss said last week that she wants to continue discussions with the CFRR once a new CFRR chair is elected to find a "solution that is appropriate."

"We hope to achieve an agreement with the Administration that respects CFRR's role, conforming to the views we expressed in our [March] meeting," Current Faculty Senate Chair Prof. William Flesch (ENG) wrote in an e-mail to the Justice last week.