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New Mexico Highlands Settles with Faculty Member
By Jonathan Knight
Less than two months after the 2006 annual meeting placed the New Mexico Highlands University administration on the Association’s censure list, the university’s board of regents reported that it had reached a settlement with Gregg Turner, one of two faculty members whose cases led to the censure (for the investigating committee’s report). The university agreed to pay Turner $175,000, to allow him to return to the university, and to expunge from his file his having been denied tenure and his subsequent dismissal. Turner is currently teaching at the University of New Mexico.
On the same day that the regents announced the settlement, regents chair Javier Gonzales also reported an agreement to pay university president Manny Aragon $200,000 in exchange for his resignation. Aragon played a central role in the cases that resulted in the censure. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Gonzales said that the AAUP censure “precipitated” the president’s resignation.
The case of the second faculty member, David Wiedenfeld, is still unresolved. Now teaching at Marshall University in West Virginia, Wiedenfeld has filed suit in federal court alleging, among other issues, discrimination on the basis of race and national origin.
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