Take-Home Final Examination
GRADE POSTING: If you do not wish to have
your grade posted (by exam number) in this
course, please place an X by your number on
the exam and on your answer.
DIRECTIONS
This exam is "open universe." Any source materials may be used.
If typewritten, your answers must be double spaced, using only one side of an 8 ½" by 11" page. Do not use a reduced or enlarged size typeface. Your answers may also be neatly written by hand.
Five hours has been allotted for the examination. If an exam is turned in more than 5 hours after it has been signed out, substantial points will be deducted. No exam may be turned in any later than Friday, December 20, 1996, at 5:00 p.m.
There is no presumption that use of a case name results from knowledge of its contents. Discuss and analyze any case law you plan to use in your answer.
You must turn in your examination with your answer.
You may not discuss this examination with anyone, either while you are taking it, or at any time during the examination week.
GOOD LUCK!
EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION
FINAL EXAMINATION
Jennifer Barrus and her family are committed Mormons, living in Virginia. When Jennifer began looking at colleges, she limited her search to the two Mormon-owned schools in the West: Brigham Young University, in Utah, and Ricks College, in Idaho. However, as membership in the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints approaches toward 10 million in the United States alone, those two colleges have become extremely selective. BYU turned away more than 1,300 freshman applicants for the 1995 fall semester, and Ricks College has already rejected 2,000 for next fall. While Jennifer had good grades and high test scores, she was rejected by both colleges. Her father then came up with a third option.
He and a group of Mormon businessmen and educators acquired Southern Virginia College (SVC)-- a two-year private women's college -- and are turning it into a four-year, co-educational school with a strong LDS influence. This will be a big change for SVC, which is known mostly for the quality of its writing and equestrian programs. The new owners stress that the college will continue to be nonsectarian and nonprofit. The group did not approach Mormon Church leaders for financial support, nor does it plan to. But they expect many of their students will be Mormon, because the new owners will impose a BYU-like honor code and an emphasis on moral and spiritual development. The school will apply for state funding, which the Virginia legislature makes available to both public and private colleges.
Current students will be allowed to remain, but some are likely to consider the new strictures too severe. Both students and faculty are required to sign and abide by the college's new honor code, which requires them to be honest, chaste and virtuous, to obey the law, to use clean language and to abstain from alcoholic beverages, including coffee, tea and soft drinks containing caffeine. They must also refrain from using tobacco and illegal drugs. The new dress code specifies that shorts and skirts must be knee-length, that pants for female teachers are "not appropriate" and that mustaches and beards must be neatly trimmed. Earrings for men are prohibited, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance was removed from the list of approved (and funded) student organizations. While the school will become co-educational, male and female students will be housed in separate dorms. Finally, students and faculty are now required to donate two hours of their time each week to community service. Any faculty or students found in violation of these rules are subject to discipline.
The takeover has upset quite a few faculty, staff and students at SVC. The long-time Chair of the English Department, Susan MacGregor, was relieved of her duties, and told that the Mormons preferred to have only men serve as Chairs of academic departments, in keeping with the exclusive male leadership of the church. She also received a negative memo in her personnel file indicating that she continued to drink coffee in her office, had been seen smoking in her car in the parking lot, and wore pants in the classroom in defiance of the new dress code. Sharon Fuentes, a secretary in Admissions who was six months pregnant, was indignant to discover that the new employee benefits manual promised wifes of male faculty members extensive pregnancy coverage, including up to a week in the hospital, and reimbursement for forty hours of "nurse, childcare or household support services" in the three months following delivery. Pregnancies of female employees, on the other hand, were covered exactly like any other employee disability.
Michael Radison, the equestrian coach and only openly gay member of the college's staff, was given two weeks salary in lieu of notice and told not to reapply for any position with the college.
The new owners of the school issued a memorandum to all faculty stating that their goal was to achieve a faculty composed of 50% "or more" committed Mormons by the year 2000, in order to establish a distinctive LDS "presence" at the College. In order to achieve this goal, the school would reserve the first 10 full-time faculty openings for Mormons in good standing with their church, who could produce a "temple recommend." (A "temple recommend" can be withheld by local lay bishops if a church member is believed to have deviated from any of the rules of the church.) The memorandum also stated that, because of the Mormon policy of encouraging large families with mothers at home, all Mormon men on the college's payroll would have a "head of household" supplement added to their paycheck, in the amount of 25% of their take-home wages.
Joseph Wagner, a Catholic professor in the History Department, indicated that he would be interested in doing some research on the history of Mormons in Virginia. This project was approved, and Wagner was given access to internal church records and extensive historical documents. Three months later, Wagner came to the college leaders with disturbing news. He had unearthed remarkable similarities between the Book of Mormon and another book, "View of the Hebrews", which was written in 1823 by a Christian minister. This discovery was tantamount to heresy. Devout Mormons believe that the founder of their church, Joseph Smith Jr, was visited in 1823 by an angel who led Smith to a cache of gold plates and gave him special devices and scribes to translate the Egyptian characters on the tablets into what is now the Book of Mormon.
Wagner was interrogated repeatedly by the Mormon administration, in an effort to make him recant his conclusions. Wagner endured roughly five hours every week of contentious meetings with the Dean and various Vice-Presidents, in which his credentials as a historian were jeered at, his previous scholarship belittled, and he was forced to rebut attacks on the historical foundations of the Catholic faith. After three months of this treatment, Wagner accepted early retirement. He agreed to sign a contract promising never to publicize his discoveries as a condition of retaining his retirement benefits.
Wagner, Fuentes, MacGregor and Radison have all found their way to you. They have brought along several students who have been disciplined for swearing, smoking pot and drinking alcohol (the students are of legal drinking age) in an off-campus bar. None of their claims are time-barred. Discuss and evaluate any claims these new clients may have against Southern Virginia College, and any defenses available to the College.