babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Syndicate
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Comment policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001- the authors
For those interested in learning more about this particular case, there is a wealth of material at the FAIR Whistleblower's site. I haven't read it all yet, but I will do my best to do so and report back here.
This letter, dated November 24, 2010, was signed by 86 mathematicians from insititutions in various countries, and addressed to the president of the University of Manitoba, Dr. David T. Barnard:
Letter in support of suspended University of Manitoba professor
Excerpts:
Thanks unionist.
Lukacs' response to the latest statement by the university indicates that the problem at the department was indeed about jurisdiction; whether the dean of graduate studies had the right to impose his view on the department or not:
http://fairwhistleblower.ca/content/response-statements-dr-barnard-dr-do...
Here is the email where the Dean first responds to the question about his authority to unilaterally alter eligibility criteria for a math PhD. Lukacs had emailed him as follows:
CBC the current interviews Lukacs and an expert on exam anxiety:
http://fairwhistleblower.ca/content/cbc-current-exam-anxiety-gabor-lukacs
After Lukacs' suspension, the U of Manitoba administration hurriedly brought a request to the senate to approve deans' expanded powers in making such discretionary decision. The University senate (comprised of administration, faculty and student representatives) reject the motion. The minutes of discussion indicate how strongly it was opposed:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/admin/governance/media/senminnov2010.pdf
Here is my background: I have spent 30 years at pse institions as both a student and an employee. I spent 8 years working with students with disabilities on 2 campuses. This doesn't make me right or wrong. I just want people to know where I am coming from.
I see only two issues at the moment.
1) Does Lukacs have standing in a court of law to appeal a degree granted by the institution at which he works? I believe he doesn't.
2) Was the University correct in suspending Lukacs for 3 months without pay? I believe it was not.
Here is the thing in a nutshell. The Dean wants to be able to grant degrees on his own with no oversight. It is a typical little Ceasar situation.
I suggest the Dean move to BC and set up his own private University or start selling degrees on the internet.
Degrees are granted by the Academic Senate and the Board of Governors at most institutions. I presume both of these bodies approved the graduation list which included the name of the student in question.
According to the FAIR site, they were not aware that in addition to the qualification exam, the student also missed a required course.
I'm reading the Senate minutes of November 3, 2010 and the point has been made. I have served on Senate in the past. The balance that needs to be struck is between the rights of a student with a disability to confidentiality and the right of Senate to approve degrees. Senate does not have the right to confidential information concerning a student's disability. Perhaps Senate should have been informed that a degree requirement was waived because of the student's disability. Unfortunately, this would lead to some Senators wanting confidential information and wanting to debate the waiving. Senate is not the appropriate body to discuss such a matter. University's rightly hire professionals to assist with accommodations for students with disabilities.
Another balance that needs to be struck is the between the right of a student to privacy, and the right to be accommodated for a disability.
It is not possible, in any workplace whatsoever, to request or require accommodation without first coming forward to management (or, in this case, some authority in the educational institution) and self-identifying as to one's disability.
You don't generally have to reveal the nature of the medical condition to anyone - except, in some circumstances, to the employer's medical provider, who is bound to confidentiality. But your functional limitations are not and cannot be kept secret. The fact that someone can't lift more than 10 kg is essentially public knowledge to immediate managers, fellow workers, prospective employers, etc. The fact that the underlying reason is cancer or degenerative back disease or whatever, ought not to be disclosed to anyone except medical professionals. Managers and others don't need to know that in order to accommodate the person.
I have no idea yet, from reading all this material, what Lukacs disclosed about the student in question. But I have my own question: How did Lukacs find out about the student's exam anxiety??? He had never instructed him nor even met him before serving him with court papers.
So three things:
1. The fact that a mathematician can't tolerate writing exams because of some medical condition is not normally protected information in any setting where the person will study or work. It must be known to all direct associates, otherwise accommodation will be difficult or impossible.
2. The underlying medical condition is no one's business, except that of the employer or school's medical provider, and even then only when reasonably necessary to validate the bona fide nature of the condition, of the resultant functional limitations (which are NOT private) and ensure that the victim is pursuing treatment, etc.
3. Whoever breached the student's privacy, it wasn't Lukacs. Lukacs could not possibly have had any confidential information which he was bound to keep confidential. Someone told him, and it wasn't the student. Think about it.
Shouldn't that be "Universities"?
By the way, there were no accommodations for me as a severely hearing disabled student in two colleges and two universities in the 1970s. I'm glad times have changed.
Caissa, in my world, the functional limitations are known to everyone in the worker's proximity, unless they are so subtle that they're invisible. You can't hide the fact that someone can't work nights, while everyone else (including more senior workers) take their shift rotation in turn. You can't hide the fact that a worker can't do various physical tasks, otherwise conflict and confusion will result when a manager assigns those tasks, or when the manager consistently avoids assigning those tasks while others carry the extra load. No one needs to know what the disability is - but they need to know the functional abilities and restrictions. And privacy commissions do not in my experience consider such information to be confidential with respect to fellow workers and managers, in the sense that the medical file is.
Likewise, it must be obvious that all kinds of people knew that this student had flunked twice, but was given a waiver - where everyone else is expected to pass or else. What did Lukacs "disclose" that everyone didn't already know? And how did he know it? None of this is clear. In fact, the first disciplinary sanction taken against Lukacs had nothing to do with privacy - it was a reprimand for "harassment". Whom was he harassing - someone he had never met?
This doesn't compute.
The confusion I see here is conflating the inability to take a test, and competency in a chosen field. At best, tests are an imperfect measure of a person's knowledge base, and if the student also suffers from an anxiety disorder directly related to test-taking, its validity can only be even worse.
On the one hand, we don't want to, say, graduate people from engineering who may make mistakes in their calculations when building bridges. On the other, as Boom Boom has alluded to, people with disabilities of all sorts have been excluded from earning college degrees because of difficulties related to their disabilities, not to the set of skills needed for a field.
I wonder if Prof Lukács has ever, upon being called in class, experienced this: a feeling of being unable to breathe, and you can't speak, and you can't hear the professor because your heart is pounding in your ears, and you can barely remember your own name let alone anything pertinent to the class material.
A friend who has an anxiety disorder described it thusly: "You can't think, and everything feels like this *clenches fists* and you feel like little pieces of your soul are breaking off from around the edges."
Imagine the anxiety the student must be going through what with all this attention.
Not everyone needs a PhD, Sineed. Not everyone can be a pilot or an air traffic controller. Some disabilities simply exclude you from certain occupations, because accommodation can't be made without undue hardship or waiving inescapable core requirements.
The principal question for me is, who decides the core requirements in all these cases? If pilot instructors say that an individual doesn't have the basic knowledge to proceed to certification, they may be "right" or "wrong" - but I'd be uncomfortable with having their opinion overruled, or simply ignored, by an airline HR person or manager acting on advice of lawyers.
I don't see how further light is shed on the underlying issue by emphasizing how sorry we should feel for the disabled individual, or how Lukacs should have approached the issue, or whether Lukacs has empathy.
Re. post 16- Interesting questions. I'm not sure they are germane to the case in question though.
I can't say it better than Sineed did here.
The confusion I see here is conflating the inability to take a test, and competency in a chosen field. At best, tests are an imperfect measure of a person's knowledge base, and if the student also suffers from an anxiety disorder directly related to test-taking, its validity can only be even worse.
I really appreciate Unionist your giving insight into how these issues are dealt with in industry. I am mostly familiar with how they are dealt with at the university level and that is my frame of reference.Something made me think of this case. Still "conflicted" about the issues involved. Here's what happened after our interesting discussions.
August 26, 2011 - as predicted by babblers, Lukacs lost in court based on a "technicality" (lack of standing) - the court of course never dealt with the substantive matters:
U of M prof loses round in PhD fight
November 10, 2011 - Lukacs's appeal against his 3-month suspension and other disciplinary sanctions was settled in mid-hearing as reflected in the following joint statement:
Obviously, this means they reimbursed Lukacs for his three-months off and paid his increment, plus whatever other undisclosed terms. Babblers had also mostly opined that the discipline was very draconian, if deserved at all.
I don't know what aftershocks this caused at U of Manitoba regarding the Dean's apparent self-arrogated unilateral right to make "exceptions" to any and all academic degree requirements, nor do I know (though I think it's less important) where Lukacs's career has led him since leaving.
His career as a prof has essentially ended and he lives in Halifax with his wife but has no university affiliation with anyone. But seems to be doing well suing airlines
This was from June:
Ruling hands air passenger advocate Gabor Lukacs another victory