Employer’s caution wins lawsuit: A lesson from academia

One of the hardest things for employers is being accused of wrongdoing and, rather than reacting defensively, flipping it to their advantage. For an example of how to do so, let’s look to the University of Houston (UH) and how it handled a discrimination complaint from a disappointed professorship applicant.

Professors squabbling

Kate Kingsbury applied for a professorship at UH in its Department of Comparative Cultural Studies. As with other candidates, she was interviewed by a committee of faculty members. Enter Professor Elizabeth Farfán-Santos, one of the four committee members. While inquiring about Kingsbury’s study of the Mexican religious movement Santa Muerte, Farfán-Santos asked, “What makes you think, as a white person, that you could ever understand such a powerful tradition?”

Kingsbury and another committee member then emailed Department Chair Nicholas De Genova, complaining about what they considered an offensive question. UH’s Office of Equal Opportunity Services (EOS) began an investigation.

An upset Farfán-Santos then filed her own complaint with EOS because she was offended by the complaint made about her. She also hopped on Twitter complaining that UH wasn’t supporting her. Not to be outdone, Kingsbury emailed De Genova again, complaining, for the first time, that she was being discriminated against because she wasn’t of Mexican origin.