The lawsuit between a former University of Wisconsin-Whitewater dean and the UW System Board of Regents along with other members of UW System over allegations of racial bias began Monday.

Former UW-Whitewater Dean of Letters and Sciences Howard Ross filed a lawsuit, which said a consultant hired through the Board of Regents conducted an audit that was racially biased.

The answer and counterclaim from the defendants, dated April 9, 2008, said, “The actions about which the plaintiff complains were undertaken for legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons and not on the basis of race, retaliation or any other unlawful reason.”

Ross, a black man, has also served as a professor at UW-Whitewater, and alleges in the complaint the defendants violated the law by subjecting Ross to “disparate treatment” without due process of law.

Defendant Indra Mohabir was the auditor employed by the Board of Regents to do a “routine audit” of UW-Whitewater’s faculty and staff. In her audit, she allegedly focused on Ross and former Graduate Studies Dean Lee Jones, who is also black. In the complaint, Ross said Mohabir said she focused on them because “the white administrators on campus were more honest.”

During the audit, Mohabir allegedly made other racially disparaging remarks, including the statement that, “she wished all black people could be as honest as Michael Jordan” while auditing the other black dean on the UW-Whitewater campus.

The complaint also said Mohabir was “openly hostile” and “disrespectful” to Ross during her audit, and Mohabir allegedly harassed Ross and demanded to inspect his personal belongings.

After said comments, Ross both publicly and privately criticized the discriminatory treatment he said he was subjected to during his audit, and his criticisms were published in several newspapers.

In the complaint, Ross said former UW-Whitewater Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Richard Telfer reprimanded him for his “public criticisms of race discrimination.”

After being scolded between December 2005 and January 2006, the audit was extended another six months.

The complaint says Ross was not informed of the new audit, and no new information was requested of him regarding the audit after it had been completed.

Ross was informed of the extended audit during a meeting with Telfer, during which Telfer did not ask Ross to provide receipts or invoices for any purchases, according to the complaint.

In March 2006, Ross was allegedly asked to resign from his position as dean by UW-Whitewater Chancellor Martha Saunders.

Those allegations are denied in the answer and counterclaim from the defendants.

According to the counterclaim from the defendants, “[Ross] purposefully and recklessly ignored and refused and failed to follow university rules, regulations and policies related to the use of university property.”