A professor suing the University of Arkansas at Little Rock law school over public records is now asking a judge to prevent the school from forcing him to participate in an investigation he refers to as "a witch hunt" before a hearing in his case takes place.
Law professor Robert Steinbuch sued the W.H. Bowen School of Law and the school's dean, Michael Schwartz, in November over Schwartz's refusal to turn over certain student admissions records.
Steinbuch amended his public records lawsuit earlier this month to add Associate Dean Theresa Beiner as a defendant, accusing her of retaliation over his litigation.
After two professors emailed complaints about Steinbuch's lawsuit -- questioning his grading practices and whether he is biased against minority-group students given his research conclusions that the school has lower admissions standards for black students -- an investigation into his grading and the bias complaint has begun.
A hearing over that retaliation complaint is set for Jan. 25. Steinbuch has sought relief from a judge from participating in the investigation, which he says is "based on nothing more than the baseless allegations of two rogue, race-baiting professors."
His new amendment, filed Tuesday, says the retaliation has continued to a point that his job has been threatened.
The school's attorneys initially agreed to halt their interview with Steinbuch in their investigation -- something the school maintains is separate from Steinbuch's lawsuit -- but have since reneged on that agreement, according to the amended complaint.
Joan Maxey, counsel for the law school, sent a letter to Steinbuch's attorney, Matt Campbell, on Dec. 22 saying the interview would proceed before the January hearing date and that if Steinbuch refused to participate a conclusion would be decided without his input. The letter also suggested he could be disciplined if he refused to participate.
"It is no stretch to conclude, under the circumstances here, that defendants' real motive for improperly redacting public records and retaliating against plaintiff for pursuing his legal rights is defendants' collective fear that plaintiff's research will be more widely disseminated and, the data being what they are, will give [the university] a black eye," the lawsuit says.
Steinbuch is researching race-based admissions at the school.
His research shows the law school admitted black students with significantly lower admissions scores than white students over the 6-year period studied and that those students failed the bar exam at a rate twice as high as white students', he said.
The school never informed students with low entrance scores of their lower likelihood of bar passage, and as a result certain students continued to enroll at the school "to their own financial detriment," the lawsuit states.
Schwartz, Beiner and the school have denied the allegations of retaliation and the alleged reasoning behind redacting the records.
Steinbuch had received the same data from Schwartz before -- even getting an attorney general's opinion in 2013 that said the school must release the records. He is seeking the records this time to update his research with the most recent data.
The school now says it erred in providing the records before, saying that since Steinbuch had served on the admissions board and since there are so few black students at the school, it's reasonable to believe he could identify the students by their test scores and race.
That would violate the students' rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the school said in its answer to Steinbuch's initial November complaint.
Steinbuch is asking for a preliminary injunction against the school, preventing it from making him participate in the investigation into his grading that he alleges is retaliatory in nature.
He's also asking for access to the public records he requested, his attorney's fees paid and damages for the retaliation.
Metro on 12/31/2015