WINNIPEG – The University of Manitoba did not “˜muzzle’ math Prof. Gabor Lukacs over academic integrity, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Deborah McCawley said Thursday.
McCawley reserved her decision on the key issue before her – whether Lukacs has the legal right to sue the university in an attempt to rescind a controversial PhD awarded last year to a math student who claimed to suffer from the disability of extreme exam anxiety.
But McCawley told Lukacs’s lawyer Robert Tapper during his presentation of his case that the evidence indicates that U of M ordered Lukacs to desist over privacy issues.
“Your client was not ordered to desist discussion of academic integrity. It’s not right to say it’s effectively a muzzle order,” the judge said.
The university suspended Lukacs for three months without pay this past fall for allegedly disclosing the student’s private health information. His grievance hearing is set for June.
But U of M lawyer Jamie Kagan countered with the argument that if you disobey your boss, you pay a price.
Kagan, nevertheless, made it clear that a labour dispute or the process of awarding PhDs was not on the docket.
What was being argued Thursday is whether Lukacs has the right to sue U of M to try to rescind the doctorate awarded to a math student who twice failed his crucial comprehensive exam, then was awarded the it on the basis of his disabling anxiety. The U of M maintains it is legally required to accommodate such a recognized disability.
Lukacs was not directly affected by the university’s decision to award the doctorate in math last year, and thus has no right to sue the university, Kagan contended.
Lukacs did not teach the student involved, and he was not a member of the math department committee which handled the student’s appeal, Kagan said.
Tapper told the court that Lukacs is directly affected, because the integrity of his department and its degrees is at stake.
Kagan told the court that Lukacs received a reprimand, and was told in a private meeting not to violate the student’s privacy by disclosing his name and health information. Despite that, Lukacs was subsequently “spinning it around the Internet to whoever might want to read it,” Kagan said.
“We can’t take his labour grievance, and spin that up into a grievance against the student, the faculty and the university, to challenge his diploma,” Kagan said. “When you disobey your employer, there is going to be a consequence, and Dr. Lukacs felt that consequence.”
But, said Tapper, “This case has nothing whatever to do with privacy. The connection is not to the student, but to the process.
“The University of Manitoba has nothing to be proud of in this case.’’
Tapper said the case is about “petty demagoguery” and “fiefdom protection.”
He said that dean of graduate studies, Jay Doering, had no authority to waive degree requirements and award the unnamed student a PhD. Tapper said that science dean Mark Whitmore attempted to silence dissent from Lukacs and other math professors.
Lukacs feared that U of M would be seen as a “˜diploma mill’ and its research funding and international standing would suffer, Tapper said.
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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