University of Missouri law professor sues school over ADA

Daily Record and the Kansas City Daily News-Press, May 12, 2008 by Heather Cole

A tenured associate law professor who has focused on gender and race issues in published articles has sued the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, claiming the school didn't accommodate her chronic fatigue syndrome.

Pamela J. Smith, who is representing herself, filed the lawsuit April 25 in Boone County Circuit Court, naming as defendants the university's board of curators, Dean R. Lawrence Dessem, associate dean James Devine, and the university's Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator, Lee Henson. The suit seeks more than $25,000, plus punitive damages.

Smith, who teaches technology and intellectual property courses, is not scheduled to teach at the university until spring 2009. She did not return messages left on her office voice mail and e-mail. Her home phone number was unlisted. School spokeswoman Casey Baker said the school won't comment on pending litigation.

Smith said in the 23-page petition that she was diagnosed with chronic fatigue in December 2005 and asked for accommodations starting in February 2006, but they weren't provided quickly or effectively. Dessem and Devine waited about a week and a half to check for scheduling conflicts after Smith asked to change her teaching schedule in fall 2007, and Dessem refused to add online teaching at the law school to accommodate Smith's disability, Smith said in the lawsuit.

Dessem also placed or had staff put a "15-year-old dirty couch" with mold on it in Smith's office, "causing an exacerbation of her disabling illness," the lawsuit said. Smith also claims her office had moldy carpet, and an office offered as an alternative had mold or dust coming out of the vents.

In the lawsuit, Smith also takes issue with the handling of an alleged threat made by a student Smith accused of cheating and details complaints about chalk and stapler availability and classroom clutter.

The state Commission on Human Rights investigated Smith's complaint and gave her a right-to-sue letter.

Smith joined the University of Missouri law school faculty as an associate professor with tenure in 2001, the year after she published an article titled "The Tyrannies of Silence of the Untenured Professors of Color" in the University of California- Davis Law Review. The article discusses Smith's personal experience, according to a description in the October 2001 Journal of Law and Education. The eight articles written by Smith and listed with her profile on the university Web site all deal with race and gender issues.