In an effort to preserve professors' right to tenure, the University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate passed a resolution Monday advising the American Association of University Professors to conduct a formal investigation into possible due process and shared governance violations surrounding the Board of Regent's dismissal of UW-Superior professor John Marder.

Marder, a tenured professor who was relieved of his position amid allegations of sexual harassment and poor conduct in 2001, has since sued the Board of Regents for reinstatement at UW-Superior and to receive back pay for his leave, claiming his case was not subjected to due process.

Over the last four years, the case traveled through the court system and will be heard by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court Tuesday.

UW System policy and state law requires universities to adhere to due process before dismissing tenured professors.

In Marder's case, however, the Board of Regents fired him without consultation, according to the Faculty Senate. Instead, the regents based their decision on a private meeting held with UWS Chancellor Julius Erlenbach.

To justify Marder's termination, UW System officials have cited the 1974 Wisconsin State Supreme Court Decision Safransky v. State Personnel Board — concerning a tenured government employee at an institution for mentally challenged children — as precedent giving the right to fire him because his conduct compromised his performance.

Now other UW System professors feel their tenure could be at risk.

"And there is a concern the Safransky rule … should not apply to a profession like a university professor where our internal criteria, our own professional criteria should be applied, not this criteria that [is] applied to someone who was a standard worker," Faculty Senate Executive Committee Chair Patty Brenan said. "The difference there being the scope of a work of a professor … is not supervised in the same way an hourly worker is supervised."

The resolution, drafted by Faculty Senate professor Anatole Beck, is an official statement of condemnation and protest on behalf of the entire faculty government encouraging the AAUP — a national governing body of university professors devoted to securing academic freedom — to side with the senate against the UW System's handling of Marder.

At the Monday senate meeting, Beck, in support of the resolution, said the regents' misconduct forced Marder to fight for his position and integrity against incredible odds.

"He was told 'if you believe what we did was illegal, you go fight the power and wealth of the state of Wisconsin,'" Beck said. "He was in a position that practically nobody in this room could possible have met [and it] could have happened to any of us."

Beck said Marder has justly fought his case, and without contesting their practices the regents could abuse their power to relieve other professors of their tenure without due process.

"For over four years he has been fighting to prove that the action taken was illegal," he said.