Electrical Engineering Prof. Margaret Murnane left Michigan for the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1999 in lieu of filing a plagiarism complaint against another faculty member.

Murnane, a MacArthur Foundation grant winner, said she feared her reputation would be attacked in an effort to undermine her plagiarism claim.

"I talked to other professors who tried even harder to remedy their situations and they all said 'leave while you can.' Our lawyer advised us to walk away. I am so thankful that I took that advice," she said. "We attempted to file a grievance, and we were discouraged by senior administrators. (The University of Michigan is) very good at discrediting people. They did call my previous institution looking to smear me. They want to create paranoia in your mind."

Murnane's fears are consistent with the concerns of other professors who said they fear retribution from department chairs, other faculty or University administrators if they file a grievance against the University.

University math Prof. Emeritus Wilfred Kaplan, who handled complaints for the American Association of University Professors' Ann Arbor chapter for more than 30 years, said filing a complaint creates a very negative atmosphere for a professor.

"It's terrifying before and after," Kaplan said. When a complaint is filed "the University is a terrible place to work. ... There was generally a fear of retaliation, especially recently."

Kaplan spoke of "behind-the-scenes battling" and counterclaims which made professors who filed complaints uncomfortable and said the University administration has turned a deaf ear to the AAUP's concerns.

"In one case, a tenured professor was confronted with a charge of harassment with a colleague. That did terrific damage to that person's health," he said.

Kaplan said that in another case, a faculty member considered suicide as the result of abuses by an administrator.

"That was a case where the AAUP complained to the administrator and there was a meeting with the provost and the administration," Kaplan said. "It was very distinguished faculty and they presented the case for that particular unit and the provost said 'this is terrible, this must not be done,' and I know that nothing was done."

Kaplan said that the University handles every complaint in a consistent manner.

"Whenever a complaint is made against an administrator, (the administrator) is always backed up by the University."

Kaplan also served on the legal advisory committee of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs.

"We had not a great number but a certain number that came to (SACUA) instead of coming to AAUP. They came to us often with very serious complaints. We wrote to the president (of the University) and our letters were usually not even acknowledged. This is the pattern. Any of the recent administrations have not wanted to change."

Kaplan said the grievance procedures set out in the University Board of Regents' bylaws and by SACUA rarely solve problems. In the case of the regents' procedures it is because the University tends to maintain there is no wrongdoing, giving grievants no other option but litigation in pursuing a claim. In the case of the SACUA procedure (which involves a panel of other faculty) Kaplan said the problem is that the faculty panel can act only as an advisory committee to department chairs or administrators, who retain the final say in any grievance. SACUA is presently discussing changes to the grievance process with University administrators.

"When (faculty) come to us, we warn them about how difficult it is to correct the problem. A lawsuit is very expensive, very time consuming and can go the wrong way.

We try to help them and do all we can, but our recent experience has been very poor.

"The number (of complaints) which leads to a formal grievance procedure is less than half of the ones we hear about, because there is almost no record of a grievance changing something," Kaplan said. "I can think of one case in the last 10 years in which a procedure was corrected. It is the one case I know of in which the grievance procedure led to an even half-hearted remedy."

Kaplan said the perception of hopelessness is compounded by fears of retaliation.

"We certainly know of a general pattern that those who fight vigorously face retaliation," Kaplan said. "They lose one privilege or another."

"In one case, there was a lawsuit by a professor who, when the law was changed to end mandatory retirement at age 70, this professor decided to stay on, and the University moved his office to a very inconvenient location," he said. "Very active protestors know that they are unwelcome to the administration and that the administration will do them no favors at all.