Texas Tech lawsuit teaches multiple lessons

Sometimes one lawsuit serves as a valuable teaching tool on several fronts. A recent case from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (the federal appeals court covering Texas) fits the bill! I’ll tell you about the facts first, then the lesson.

Choppy academic career

Cara Wessels Wells attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock. In 2009, she became the paid research assistant to Professor Samuel Prien in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences.

All was not smooth sailing in academia, and Wells alleged that Prien and another professor forced her to share a hotel room with them during an academic conference. Moreover, she claimed the professors consistently harassed and bullied her. After her graduation, she continued working in Prien’s lab as a Ph.D. student.

Wells graduated from the Ph.D. program in 2017 and struggled to find work. Allegedly, Prien told her that he couldn’t recommend her for a job so that she would have no choice but to return to work in his lab. She finally ended up in the Tech Accelerator Hub program, which helped fund her in a tech start-up in products dealing with animal embryos. In May 2022, she was accepted as a mentor in the Hub program, which she hoped would turn into a paying position at the university.