Back in May, we reported on the case of a St. Mary's School of Law LRW prof who was suing the Texas school for alleged age and gender discrimination when it failed to renew her contract. Now comes this story courtesy of the Law Librarian Blog (yet another reason to subscribe to it) about a University of Iowa LRW prof candidate who is suing the school alleging she was denied the job due to her conservative political beliefs. A copy of the complaint can be found here as well as a more detailed account of the case here courtesy of fire.org. The applicant in question, Teresa Wagner, had previously been offered a tenure track job at Ave Marie School of Law before its move from Michigan to Naples, Florida (and also had prior experience as an adjunct LRW prof at George Mason).
In addition to being the second discrimination suit brought by a LRW prof in the past four months, it's the second employment discrimination suit brought against the U. of Iowa School of Law in the past couple of weeks.
Here's a description of Ms. Wagner's claim courtesy of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:
In the fall of 2006, Wagner applied for one of two openings at the College of Law for a full-time Writing Instructor position, for which "prior successful law school teaching" experience was listed as a qualification. According to her complaint, prior to Wagner's second faculty interview for this position, she was advised by the Associate Dean of the law school to "conceal her affiliation" with Ave Maria School of Law from voting faculty members. Despite having the necessary teaching experience in her background, as well as the fact that her interview and presentation to faculty were complimented by several faculty members, Wagner was passed over for the full-time position. As alleged in Wagner's complaint, there may have been some impermissible reasons for this: