Slander and blacklisting after departure?
My question possibly involves the following areas of employment law: slander, defamation, and blacklisting by a former employer. I am interested in determining whether pursuing a case would make sense.
Background:
I was a professional (or, "exempt") at-will staff member at a college in Indiana for 3 years. During my tenure, I never received a bad review and, in fact, at the end of the previous year, my yearly salary increase was augmented because of "exceptional performance, at the request of my supervisor" as the appointment letter stated.
At the very end of last semester, I was informed that the College did not need "my higher-end skills" so my position was being eliminated and they were going to seek another individual more suited to their needs. In other words, they were not saying I was being fired, they were saying my position was not necessary because of poor fit for the needs of the small institution. A short time later, the College advertised the position with a virtually identical description and hired another individual.
Since my departure I have applied for positions all across the country --more than 100 by now. All were within my areas of experience at educational institutions, and there were 10 or 20 where I was nearly an exact match for the published list of requirements. I have had basically one of two experiences. I don’t hear anything from them (even the close matches), or I make it through the phone interviews to the last round, I am told to expect an in-person interview, and then zap! no more interest. This suggests to me that administrators or staff are blackballing me whenever they have an opportunity. In the first case, when an institution called someone there before even making contact with me, in the second case when an institution called someone there after our phone conversations. (My actual references listed don’t seem to be called.)
To investigate this, I hired a reference checking service to call a number of individuals I suspected of sabotaging my employment efforts.
More details:
--1. One staff member maintained a hesitant and negative tone. At one point he said that I was "Saudi Arabian." This seems a fairly clear attempt to destroy job opportunities by suggesting in the current climate that I was an Arab. I am certainly not an Arab, as anyone could observe and as the individual well knew. (Although I did work in Saudi Arabia for a number of years for an American-Saudi petrochemical company, along with many other Americans, that is not what the individual said.) (In any case, if I _were_ an Arab, this would be an example of racism, wouldn’t it?) So, a verifiably false statement, and malice with the purpose of preventing future employment?
--2. Another staff member gave a very negative characterization that is not supported by any information provided in any performance review. It is in fact contradicted by letters from faculty and students of the institution. Some examples of statements are:
Q) Was he a team player?
A) No. He is not a team player. He alienated entire departments.
Q) If you were responsible for hiring would he be eligible for rehire?
A) No.
Q) Would you recommend this individual for a similar position?
A) No. I would only recommend him if he did not need to prioritize projects, train staff, manage staff or students or respond to customer needs. If he was simply given projects to do and told they needed to be done in a month, I think he could do that. But he could not walk a client through the process of completing a project. Determining client needs from start to finish, collaborating and working together on a solution. That was NOT his strength. If you said, "I want this done, you do it", he could do that and he’d do it very well. He could not do customer service.
--All of these points are directly contradicted by a number of letters from faculty and students.
--My question: doesn’t all of this go beyond “personal opinion” (since it is not supported) and constitute malice with the purpose of preventing future employment?
The same individual on one occasion explained to my wife why I was "fired" (as he put it). The reasons were these. --I couldn't "teach." I didn't have a talent for teaching, it was not in my skill set, I couldn't help faculty members when they had questions, etc. --For students, I didn't want to help students at a basic level, I only wanted to help students at an advanced level. --I wanted to "do things my own way." When asked for advice by students or faculty, I tried to insist that they only do things in the way that I suggested. --I "often offended people." This conversation ended with my wife asking, somewhat naively, "so, my husband now has a bad name at the college?" To which the individual member replied “yes.”
--3. A number of other staff members, including the Director of Human Resources, my most recent supervisor, and some faculty members all responded with negative, uncooperative tones or made remarks which anyone knew would scare off a search committee or employer. My supervisor, although verifying that I actually had done what I said there, tried to imply that I had exaggerated by saying that I didn’t do something which I never mentioned doing! (Please keep in mind that I have a number of complimentary letters from faculty and students to counter all this.) Given the uniform character of a certain cross-section of individual responses, this seems to approach blacklisting --an institutional effort to prevent employment. God knows what they would be saying to their cronies at other educational institutions.
--4. Although probably not provable or actionable, just for the information: during my last year, it seemed clear that I was being phased out. I was not invited to meetings, my supervisor and others tried to give me projects at the last minute thinking I wouldn’t be able to do them, which would lead to embarrassment, being discredited, etc. I actually never (in 3 years) had a properly completed performance review (question: did everyone else?). A college official has tried to maintain untruthfully that I left on my own (that I was given a choice in the matter). And, actually, he encouraged me to say that to potential employers. Since that was not true, perhaps he intended to use that to suggest that I was not honest when contacted by an employer.
Answers (1)
In my opinion, the responses are still subjective opinions and privileged, even if wrong. Malice is a high standard to meet, such as saying you were fired for coming to work drunk when that is completely untrue. It is not black and white, so you should consult with some local counsel for their opinions.
posted by Brenda Franklin Rodeheffer | Jan 15, 2003 10:28 AM [EST]
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