OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The state Supreme Court says it was OK for Western Washington University to hold a closed disciplinary hearing for a professor who had a long history of insulting colleagues and students.
Perry Mills is a professor in the university’s theater-arts department. In 2004 a faculty panel recommended that he be suspended without pay for two quarters after he told one student she was a “400-pound canary who warbles nothingness” and told another, who was undergoing chemotherapy, that failing to present a play in class would be the same as dying from cancer.
Mills challenged the university’s decision to close his hearing to the public. The state’s newspaper industry filed a brief on his behalf, arguing that the state Constitution requires justice to be administered openly, including administrative hearings.
The Supreme Court unanimously rejected their arguments Thursday, overturning an appeals court decision. The high court said state law allows public universities to devise rules for peer-review hearings, Western followed its own rules, and the Constitution’s language doesn’t apply to quasi-judicial proceedings.
