Coastal Carolina University is being sued by another former professor
A former Coastal Carolina University professor filed a lawsuit against the school alleging he was unjustly denied tenure and fired, despite qualifying for tenure.
Alejandro Muñoz, who taught at Coastal Carolina University from 2010 until May 2021, is suing the university after he was fired as a consequence of being denied tenure, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this week in Horry County.
Both Coastal Carolina University and Provost Daniel Ennis are named as defendants in the lawsuit. The university and Ennis were also named as defendants in a 2018 lawsuit by another former professor.
In the recent lawsuit, Muñoz alleges the university violated due process and unfairly denied him tenure, which resulted in his termination from the university.
The lawsuit states that Muñoz was hired at Coastal Carolina in 2010 as a teacher assistant. The same year, Muñoz was promoted to an adjunct lecturer. Then in 2014, he became a full-time tenure-track assistant professor.
Muñoz’s yearly evaluations showed that he consistently made progress toward tenure and promotion, the filing states.
But when Muñoz applied for tenure and promotion in 2019, the chair of his department wrote a letter of recommendation against granting him tenure on the grounds that Muñoz did not meet the requirement of having two publications, according to the lawsuit. The department chair is not named in the lawsuit.
In the letter, the chair said one of Muñoz’s published works — a joint publication with his wife, who is a Spanish professor at Coastal Carolina — did not count, the filing states.
According to the lawsuit, the chair had previously stated that the published work in question — a joint publication with Muñoz and his wife — satisfied the publication requirement and qualified Muñoz for tenure.
Joint publications are generally counted toward a tenure-track professor’s published works tally at Coastal Carolina, the filing says.
The department chair was also critical of Muñoz’s scholarship and teaching despite having previously given Muñoz a positive evaluation regarding his teaching. The same chair of the department had previously stated that Muñoz was making “sufficient progress” toward tenure., the lawsuit states.
The Promotion and Tenure Committee for the College of Humanities and Fine Arts — the next step in the tenure application process — disagreed with the department chair’s assessment of Muñoz and recommended him for tenure and promotion. The committee specifically disagreed on how the department chair addressed Muñoz’s published work.
The dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts also recommended Muñoz for tenure and promotion, the lawsuit states.
The committee initially approved Muñoz for tenure but not promotion, a precedent that had been set with other faculty members at Coastal Carolina, the filing states.
At a meeting to discuss Muñoz’s tenure, Ennis stated that tenure could not be awarded without promotion, despite the precedent, according to the lawsuit.
Muñoz’s lawsuit filing cites the Coastal Carolina faculty manual, stating it allows that tenure may either precede or be simultaneous with a promotion.
In March 2020, Muñoz was informed that he had been denied both tenure and promotion and, as a consequence, would be fired from Coastal Carolina effective May 2021.
Muñoz appealed the decision to deny his tenure and promotion to the university provost and then to the president. A faculty grievance committee ruled unanimously that there had been a procedural error on the university’s part in Muñoz’s tenure application process. In November 2020, the committee recommended that Muñoz be reevaluated for promotion and tenure.
The next month, the university president at the time, David DeCenzo, mailed Muñoz a letter stating that he rejected the faculty grievance committee’s recommendation and that it was his “final decision.”
The lawsuit argues that the university’s president is not allowed to reject the faculty grievance committee’s recommendations outright without taking other steps and discussing the case with parties involved.
At that point, DeCenzo had already announced his plans to retire from Coastal Carolina. DeCenzo officially retired in December.
Paul Porter, the attorney representing Muñoz, confirmed that Muñoz was no longer employed at Coastal Carolina by the conclusion of the spring semester in May.
Muñoz still has a faculty profile on Coastal Carolina’s website, and is listed there as an assistant professor of languages and intercultural studies.
Martha Hunn, spokesperson for Coastal Carolina, had not heard about the lawsuit before being contacted by The Sun News on Thursday. She provided an e-mailed statement to The Sun News.
“The University has not been served with this action and does not have any comment about the allegations made in this matter,” she wrote.
“The University will file an appropriate response to the complaint when it is properly served,” Hunn wrote.
Ennis could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit states that Coastal Carolina caused harm to Muñoz’s finances and reputation.
In the lawsuit, Muñoz asks for an undisclosed amount of money in damages from Coastal Carolina and Ennis. Muñoz is also asking for his job back at the university and for a chance to re-apply for tenure.
Porter, who represented another former Coastal Carolina professor in a lawsuit against the university in 2018, stated the decision of the university’s former president goes beyond harming just Muñoz
“Alejandro [Muñoz] is a good family man and he was a well-liked and well-regarded professor at CCU,” Porter said in an emailed statement to The Sun News.
“The grievance committee in this case agreed with him that his tenure process was not carried out appropriately. But the administration disregarded the committee’s findings.
“Our position is, that not only hurts Alejandro but also goes against shared faculty governance – the faculty’s right to have a say in how their University is governed,” Porter wrote.
2018 lawsuit
Porter, the attorney representing Muñoz, represented a former professor in another lawsuit against Coastal Carolina three years ago. Concerns over shared faculty governance were raised in the 2018 lawsuit as well.
Ennis was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit from three years ago.
A line in Muñoz’s lawsuit seems to refer to the 2018 lawsuit: Ennis “has a history . . . of idiosyncratic behavior and even making false claims to terminate the employment of” faculty members.
Former Coastal Carolina English professor Dan Turner sued Coastal Carolina in 2018, stating he was falsely accused of assaulting Ennis — a college dean at the time — and was subsequently suspended without pay in October of 2016.
Turner began teaching at Coastal Carolina in 2010 and was granted tenure in 2013. He claimed the university violated his right to due process and free speech by suspending him.
Turner’s “insistence on transparency, academic freedom and shared faculty governance” clashed with “Ennis’ penchant for nepotism and control,” according to court documents. Ennis also ridiculed Turner’s work and exhibited bizarre behavior toward him, “at one time accosting (Turner) while he was on crutches.”
According to the 2018 lawsuit, Ennis falsely claimed that Turner assaulted him after Turner confronted Ennis regarding his supervision of an administrative employee accused of embezzling more than $50,000 on a university credit card.
During the discussion, Ennis “began to leave briskly without fully responding” to Turner, the filing stated.
Turner then followed Ennis out of the meeting and patted Ennis — who had his back turned — on the back with an open hand “to get his attention, hoping that (Ennis) would address (Turner’s) concerns,” the court documents state. “(Ennis) then stated to (Turner), ‘Did you just hit me?’”
About 45 minutes later, Coastal Carolina University police officers entered Turner’s office and questioned him about a reported assault and battery. That was when Turner learned that Ennis had filed a police report.
Later that day, Coastal Carolina police officers arrived at Turner’s Georgetown County home and gave him with a letter stating that he had been suspended, without pay, due to “reported behavior,” the lawsuit states.
Turner claimed that the suspension without pay was a violation of his due process as a tenured professor. The faculty manual gives tenured professor the right to a meeting with the university provost before the beginning of the termination process, the lawsuit states.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 11:51 AM.
