Please note case study is below
Instructions Here
This exercise is designed to provide you the opportunity to demonstrate your comprehensive knowledge of the course material we have studied this semester — frameworks for decision making from legal perspectives — and to apply your knowledge to a practical scenario.
The parameters for the assignment are designed to match the actual practice of higher education leadership, including the following:
1. You may spend as much time preparing your work product as you would like between the time it is posted and the deadline, balanced with your other personal and professional commitments.
2. While I’ve provided guidance for the length of your final work product, it generally takes more time to create a better, complete but more concise (shorter) final product.
3. This assignment depends on your course materials and does not require additional legal research.
4. You may review course materials and concepts with your classmates at any point (as you would consult colleagues on a difficult issue).
5. You must produce your own, unique final product.
Advising the VP for Human Resources – A Summative Practice Exercise for Assessment
You have been asked to brief the VP of Human Resources of the institution on the scenario presented below. Because of limited time and other pressing matters, the VP needs to know the important facts and legal and policy issues they raise.
Prepare a a written memo (approx. 2,000-3,000 words) that the VP can digest without doing additional research.
1. Organize your thoughts.
2. Use clear, concise language.
3. Summarize the relevant facts briefly at the beginning. Presume that the VP is familiar with the persons involved and has already heard generally about what happened but needs a refresher of the specific facts that are most relevant to your analysis. Do not allocate more than 20% of your briefing or memo to factual background.
4. Then list and analyze each legal or policy issue separately, including arguments that a plaintiff might make against the institution
and how the institution might respond.
1. Remember the
IRAC method: for each issue, identify the
Issue/question, state the legal
Rule,
Analysis/Application of the rule to the facts, and
Conclusion.
2.
Here is an IRAC template
3.
Download IRAC template
4.
that you might use
5. Download Here is an IRAC template Download IRAC templatethat you might use
6. to work through the IRAC analysis. But, you do not need to use or submit that template (in fact, don’t submit it; your response should be in memo form).
7. Identify the applicable legal rules and name the relevant cases.
8. If the conclusion depends on additional facts that are not included in the scenario, identify what additional facts the institution needs to gather.
9. Identify specific questions that you think the VP should ask legal counsel.
10. Finally, the VP knows that you took this course and has asked you specifically to make a recommendation about the best course of action in case legal counsel is not available to advise. Provide your recommendation.
Case study
On August 1, 2023, Pat Jones began working as an instructor at Woods Park Community College (WPCC). She was hired as a math instructor shortly before the academic year began. Finding and hiring highly qualified math instructors has been a real challenge at Woods Park, a rural community college that serves significant numbers of low-income students. Pat identifies as female, and all of the other faculty members in the math department are male. The math department has monthly department meetings, and it has been the culture of the math department to go out for drinks socially during happy hour on one Friday afternoon per month. For the first few months working at WPCC, everything was fine for Pat. Work was hard because this was her first full time teaching job in higher education; she had been working as a substitute teacher on a provisional license at a local high school. Pat was eager to be a good instructor, but she was also eager to get along with her colleagues and to make a good impression on the department chairperson, Dr. Rick Wiliams. A few months into her time at WPCC, Pat decided to attend the monthly math department happy hour outing. She knew she would be the only woman there, but she felt it was important to be part of the team and to build camaraderie among the team. Things were going reasonably well, but she did overhear a comment from one of the other faculty members about how “the world was better off when women stayed home with their kids.” She wasn’t involved in that conversation, so she decided to stay silent. A few weeks later, Pat walked into the room where the department meeting was to be held. In that room, one of the male teachers was discussing a new print that Dr. Williams, the department chair, had hung in his office. It was a print of Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, which depicts a nude woman picnicking with two clothed men. That conversation stopped suddenly as soon as Pat sat down at the table for the meeting. Pat began to grow a little concerned that the department wasn’t particularly welcoming to a woman. She decided to talk to Dr. Williams in a one-on-one meeting just to let him know about her growing concern; she wanted to nip it in the bud. Pat was anxious about this meeting and spent the whole evening prior working on exactly what she was going to say. After saying what she wanted to say, Dr. Williams paused for a bit, and then said, “Listen, sweetie, I get it. You’re the only woman. I recognize that, but there’s nothing I can do about that. We’re a strong department and our students do well in our courses. Our DFW rate has dropped dramatically. That’s what matters around here.” Pat left, naturally, demoralized. A few weeks later, at the next math department meeting, one of Pat’s male colleagues asked her about her hair. Pat had shoulder length hair. The male teacher asked her if she ever considered growing it longer. “I think long hair looks nicer on women,” he said. Pat shrugged and said that she was happy with her hair. Conversation then abruptly turned back to discussion about changes to the curriculum in one of the math courses. As the academic year turned to spring, Dr. Williams showed up to workl for the first time wearing a short-sleeved shirt. When Pat saw Dr. Williams on her way into his office, she noticed that he had a small tattoo on his forearm. She couldn’t quite make out what it was, but she was oddly curious. She didn’t want to let her curiosity be too obvious, though, so she didn’t try to look any closer. Later that day, though, while eating lunch in the faculty lounge, Pat got a better glimpse of the tattoo. It was still hard to decipher, but she did notice a fist and the capital letters V and M. That night, Pat did some poking around on Google and ultimately realized that the tattoo was the logo of a group called A Voice For Men. (see image below). That group puts out an online publication and has a podcast. Their focus is “Men’s Human Rights Activism” and they claim to be one of the largest and most influential men’s rights groups. This discovery bothered Pat, particularly given how she had been feeling as the only female member of the department. After a few days and nights with not much sleep, Pat decided to contact you, the Associate VP for Human Relations, and you agreed to a meeting. At that meeting, Pat recounted the facts above. And, then she said that she believes her rights as a woman are being violated. She couldn’t explain exactly what those rights were, nor could she fully articulate what kind of remedy she was seeking. However, she did say that, at the very least, she would like for the WPCC administration to require Dr. Williams to wear long-sleeved shirts or cover the tattoo in some way during official WPCC activities. She would also like the Manet print removed from the wall of Dr. Williams’ office. You thanked Pat for her candor and told Pat that you would share your notes and concerns with Dr. Jones, the VP for Human Resources. After sharing your notes and discussing the situation with Dr. Jones, you were asked to write a memo outlining and discussing all of the potential legal issues in this case. Dr. Jones asked you to be sure to write about ALL of the possible issues, to articulate all sides of the issues, and to offer your considered opinion about how a court might rule on the issues.
