Professors silent until courts speak on Lasaga

While Geology and Geophysics (G&G) Professor Antonio Lasaga awaits his day in court, the Yale faculty has remained quiet about the case and about the University's response. The Herald spoke to several senior and junior faculty members from various departments in order to gauge their thoughts on Lasaga's tenured status.

A senior professor who did not wish to be identified thought that faculty members were willfully avoiding the Lasaga case. "I think people are too dreadfully embarrassed by the whole thing—they'd rather not touch it with a 10-foot pole," he explained. While he acknowledged that he too was avoiding mention of the case, he believed that the University should revoke Lasaga's tenure if the professor were to be convicted. He felt the faculty should adhere to a high moral standard.

Many of the professors interviewed supported the University's decision to continue its tenure of Lasaga in spite of the overwhelming physical evidence described in court documents. An anonymous faculty member in the humanities said, "Legally, you're innocent until proven guilty. If he's proven innocent, that's a great injustice to him if the University revokes his tenure. It's hard to judge to what degree the [charges and the evidence are] accurate." A senior faculty member in the sciences stated, "It's very simple. At the moment, everything is unproven. As a matter of deep principle, I think the University should wait until something happens in court. You've got to respect the due process."

Professors generally were not anxious for Yale to convene the University Tribunal, a decision-making body composed of faculty members only called on to address very serious allegations of faculty misconduct. The science faculty member said, "If going to trial takes a long time, the University might want to hold a hearing but that would tend to prejudice the legal trial." The humanities faculty member had previously taught at Harvard and drew an analogy to the policy of Harvard's Executive Board. He explained that the Executive Board would not force students charged with any crimes to testify before it. "Anything that the student would say to the board would be subpoenaed by the District Attorney," he said. "Harvard would not put a student in that position [to incriminate himself]—this is an institutional policy with any member of the academic community." He added that Yale should not put Lasaga in the difficult position of testifying at a tribunal until the court has reached a verdict.

Members of Lasaga's own G&G department tended to express the same opinions as had their colleagues in other departments. Jay Ague, a geochemistry junior professor, said, "None of us knows the true facts of the case. I go by what I read in the paper. Our legal system has to ultimately decide." When asked whether Lasaga should remain tenured if convicted, Ague said, "We want to wait to see what comes out during the trial."

Brian Skinner, a senior geochemist and former chair of the department, said, "Lasaga has been charged, but nothing has been proven. Until there is a court hearing, I don't think the University has any reason or right to remove him from tenure." Skinner suggested that a tribunal might not take place in Lasaga's case. "If he were proven guilty of any of those charges, the University has a system where in effect a system of his peers judge him," he explained. "Usually, people who get themselves in deep trouble resign."

Skinner, Ague, and another faculty member in the sciences all confirmed that the G&G department was searching for another senior geochemist. According to Skinner and Ague, however, the search was undertaken in order to strengthen the depart-ment's geochemistry division, not to find a replacement for Lasaga. "The search for the senior geochemist [had been planned beforehand]," G&G chair Danny Rye added. "It's not to replace Lasaga." Rye also denied any involvement in decisions involving tenure, and seriously doubted he would be involved in future decisions on Lasaga's tenure.

Some faculty members expressed sympathy for Lasaga. "I think that the sentiment among everyone is that it's sad and surprising," a professor in environmental studies commented. "I think that the expectation is that he's going to leave." While one senior faculty member critiqued the prosecutors for taking so long to bring the case to trial, an anonymous faculty member said, "I'm not too concerned with the matter, but I think the University's handling of the situation has been inadequate. They've been very generous to him."

As of now, jury selection in the trial—which had originally been slated for Wed., Sept. 1—has been postponed due to a motion by Lasaga's lawyers to suppress evidence. The Lasaga case appears poised to drag on through much of the fall. In the meantime, Yale's faculty members seem willing to defer to the legal process and withhold judgement, and they expect the University to do the same.

Back to News...