CLARKSBURG – A tenured math professor has accused West Virginia University of discrimination.
Harry Gingold filed his complaint in federal court against the West Virginia University Board of Governors, WVU, WVU President E. Gordon Gee, Provost Maryanne Reed, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Dean Gregory Dunaway and School of Mathematics Director and Data Sciences Director Earl Scime.
According to the pro se complaint, Gingold is a contract employee of WVU. He began working at WVU in 1981. He is 78 years old.
Gingold refers to the period of July 1, 2021, to August 1, 2023, as “the Hostile Work Environment Period.”
Sometime before February 20, 2023, the College of Arts and Science issued a call for applications for the Eberly Distinguished Professorship of Mathematics. Gingold says he asked Scime for a required letter of availability for the application.
In response, he says Scime emailed him and said the person with the endowed research chair is for “a major leader of research” in the department for the next five years.
“It is not, in my opinion, a ‘reward’ for a career of excellent research,” Scime wrote, according to the complaint. “It is, instead, a leadership role for the next five years. So how do you see yourself engaging in that role? Is such a role what you are wanting to do?”
Gingold says he doesn’t know if other applicants for the chair were asked to present their qualifications to Scime for a letter of availability, and he doesn’t know what kinds of letters Scime composed for other candidates. After the Dean’s office was made aware of Scime’s email did he wrote the letter for Gingold. But he says it failed to mention his success in mentoring and mentored PhD Graduate students.
The successful candidate was a younger member of the faculty, Gingold says.
Gingold also says he submitted an application to Scime for a sabbatical in Spring 2024 before the June 30, 2023, deadline for such a request. He says he accidentally learned secondhand his request wasn’t approved from two sources.
He says he complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that a younger faculty member had a sabbatical approved. After the complaint, Gingold says his sabbatical also was approved.
Earlier this year, Gingold says he was told by Scime his teaching load was increasing from two classes to three for the Fall 2023 semester. He had taught two classes per semester for more than 42 years, according to the complaint. After he filed the EEOC complaint, WVU reversed its decision and switched Gingold back to teaching two courses.
Gingold also says he has been denied documents that hinders his EEOC investigation, noting a July 1, 2021, letter of reprimand Scime put in his personnel file. He says Scime believed certain unsubstantiated allegations but did not speak to Gingold before deciding on the reprimand and had no investigation into the issue. He also says his 2021 yearly performance was downgraded to unsatisfactory, making him vulnerable to being dismissed for cause, suspension, demotion and pay cut. It also made him ineligible for merit pay.
On appeal to Dunaway, Gingold says the dean upheld the decision to reprimand Gingold but required Scime to upgrade his performance to satisfactory. Gingold says he wasn’t given an opportunity to present his case to Dunaway before the decision was made.
Gingold says he has expended an “extraordinary amount of time and effort to protect his rights” as a WVU employee, and he says that has resulted in “a severe extra burden” on him during the “Hostile Work Environment Period,” causing emotional distress, emotional suffering, mental anguish, worry, increased sleeplessness and loss of enjoyment of life.
He says he was granted a right to sue by the EEOC on October 4.
Gingold accuses the defendants of discrimination and retaliation, violating his constitutional rights, breach of contract and a hostile work environment. He seeks an issue of findings of fact and conclusions of law that show defendants made discriminatory decisions and violated his rights. He also seeks back and front pay for lost income caused by defendants’ misconduct, general damages, punitive damages, attorney fees, court costs, pre- and post-judgment interests and other relief.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia case number 1:23-cv-00091
