Professor files suit against UC, administrators

By Scott B. Wong
Daily Bruin Staff For one UCLA professor, the past five years have
been an endless nightmare. Now, at age 76, Andras Bodrogligeti said
he only wants to reclaim two things ““ his students and his
reputation. Today, at a status conference over his pending
discrimination lawsuit in Santa Monica Municipal Court,
Bodrogligeti hopes Superior Court Judge Robert M. Letteau grants
him a court date and the opportunity to tell his story to a jury.
Bodrogligeti, who has taught Turkish studies at UCLA to more than
8,000 students for over three decades, alleges that high-ranking
university administrators have tried to coerce him into resignation
in order to eliminate the Turkish studies program and make way for
their own “political agenda.” “What they wanted
to do was shut down a program,” said Attorney Diana Courteau,
who represents the professor. “In order to do that, they had
to discredit the man who created it.” On Dec. 21, 1999,
Bodrogligeti filed a lawsuit against the Regents of the University
of California, claiming an invasion of privacy and age/race
discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The
regents maintain that Bodrogligeti’s allegations are untrue
and that the university feels confident in its position to fight
this suit. “The bulk of the case has been dismissed ““
there’s very little that remains,” said Jeff Blair,
university counsel for the UC Regents. “I don’t believe
there’s any evidence that the university has done anything
improper.” Attorneys Alan Zuckerman and Julie DeRose have
been retained by the UC Regents as well. “The university
denies all allegations,” Zuckerman said. Pauline Yu, dean of
humanities, Antonio Loprieno, chair of the Near Eastern Language
and Cultures Program, and Cary Porter, associate dean of students,
among others, were also named in the suit for their alleged
involvement. On Monday, the suit was amended to include a due
process violation and defamation allegedly committed by Vice
Chancellor of Academic Personnel Norman Abrams for a letter about
the professor sent to California Assemblyman George House.
Administrators are declining to talk about the case, citing UC
policy which prohibits them from speaking about pending lawsuits.
“It’s practice and policy not to comment on cases that
are going to litigation,” said Robert Naples, dean of
students.

The alleged cheating Bodrogligeti is the same professor who
exposed the largest organized cheating incident in recent UCLA
history. Thirty students were caught cheating by two of
Bodrogligeti’s proctors in an elementary Uzbek language
course during a final exam in fall 1996. According to Bodrogligeti,
more than 100 identical shrunk copies of the professor’s text
were discovered underneath students’ tests, indicating this
was “organized cheating.” Halil Kaya, one of the
proctors and a graduate student working with Bodrogligeti, said
after he became suspicious of students repeatedly using the rest
room during the exam, he checked and found students “talking
and looking at cheating sheets” in the bathroom. Dean Porter
informed Bodrogligeti that he could only report students who were
caught cheating by two or more witnesses. After consulting with his
assistants, the professor submitted a list of six names, which
became five after it was found one student had used a fictitious
name and student ID number on his test. According to Bodrogligeti,
other strange anomalies surrounding the incident led him to
conclude the students were part of a larger scheme. The course,
normally capped at 18, suddenly boasted 59 students, he said. While
he may have had several Korean students in each of his previous
classes, he said, 50 of the 59 students enrolled that quarter were
of Korean descent. His attorney, Courteau, believes Bodrogligeti
was set up. Students cheated, she said, to prove the professor
could not control his classroom and was allowing rampant
misconduct, as well as cheating, to embarrass him. Through
discovery ““ the legal process of obtaining information from
the opposing party prior to trial ““ the court ordered the
university to turn over 1,500 e-mails and letters relating to
Bodrogligeti’s case dating back to 1994. Many portions of
pages were redacted, or blacked out, according to Courteau. The
university produced a July 7, 1999 letter Abrams wrote to
Assemblyman House, alleging a long history of cheating in
Bodrogligeti’s classes. “It should be noted that
Professor Bodrogligeti’s allegations of cheating by Korean
students came after many years of complaints about cheating in his
classes where he took no action and came at a time when the
University was preparing to file charges against him,” Abrams
wrote. Bodrogligeti reported the incident in December 1996, but
hearings for the five students did not take place until March 1999.
But in his February 2001 plaintiff’s deposition, Porter said
this was not a typical length of an investigation. In a September
1998 letter, College of Letters and Science Provost Brian
Copenhaver responded to students’ concerns over a Los Angeles
Times article that raised allegations the university was
retaliating against Bodrogligeti for reporting the incident.
“Cheating is not acceptable at UCLA, absolutely and
unequivocally,” he wrote. “This investigation has
indeed required more time than is typical, but the chronology has
nothing to do with the objectivity of the investigation and
certainly implies no effort to protect any group of
students.” By March 1999, when a hearing was finally
conducted, those students accused of cheating had already
graduated. According to Porter’s Academic Senate hearing
deposition in July 1999, he stated that some of the cheaters
received no sanction though “a couple”admitted to
cheating. Porter said he thought two students were suspended around
May 1999 ““ which was after they graduated. Like all UCLA
professors, Bodrogligeti has the discretion to view his
students’ records. He said the five students still have a
deferred report, which signifies a pending disciplinary matter,
listed on their records for his Turkic course. According to Anita
Cotter, associate registrar, students cannot obtain their degree
unless the DR is resolved or eliminated. And it would have been a
“human mistake” if they were awarded degrees with a DR.
Bodrogligeti’s lawyers allege there was no human error.
According to the registrar’s office, four of the five
students caught cheating graduated between June and December 1998.
The fifth in the cheating ring was last enrolled at UCLA in the
summer of 1998, but did not graduate. In an e-mail dated March 12,
1999, produced through discovery, Chair Loprieno, the
professor’s immediate supervisor, wrote to Dean Yu: “To
show evidence of cheating is too legalistically high to be of real
value. Needless to say, this is something that should never be
divulged to the media or public, but it does show … the fear of
legal consequences often makes UCLA (or perhaps all Universities)
reluctant to behave courageously against moral lapses by faculty or
students alike.” A week after the cheating episode,
Bodrogligeti said he was confronted by 12 agitated students. When
the professor refused to withdraw his report of cheating, he said
he was physically assaulted. Bodrogligeti did not file a police
report.

The purchase Just days before the university was to confer a
master’s degree upon him, Kaya said he received notice from
the Dean of Students Office that he had been discharged from the
university for selling tests to students for $200. Kaya, who filed
his own suit against the UC Regents, said he is the victim of an
undercover university operation to dispose of him because he
witnessed the cheating and the student-professor altercation.
According to Kaya, three administrators approached him as he sold
lecture notes and past exams to students the Sunday before
Bodrogligeti’s winter 1997 Uzbek exam. Kaya said he refused
to sell them a set, knowing they were not students. But when one
administrator offered Kaya $200 in cash, he said he accepted the
money. Kaya admits to selling lecture notes and past exams, but
said he could find no regulation concerning their sale in the
Student Code of Conduct. Kaya said he was dismissed without a
hearing and his appeal was rejected by the Dean of Students Office.
“The students didn’t have their hearing until two years
later,” Courteau said. “(Kaya) was let go after
approximately five days.” In a May 1998 e-mail, Chair
Loprieno wrote to Trish Farrugia, Yu’s administrative
assistant who no longer works at UCLA. “Little does
(Bodrogligeti) know that the purchasers were you, Mila (August) and
her husband! But I think you will have to devise a reason why you
decided to buy the exam. It should be easy to find one: evidence of
previous cheating, rumors among students, etc. Well, all the best
with our common enterprise.” In a deposition from an Academic
Senate hearing submitted July 8, 1999, Mila August, management
services officer of the Kinsey Administration Group, stated the
university reimbursed her $300 for purchasing lecture notes and
tests with her personal funds, $100 of which was distributed to
students to make their own purchases of notes. Furthermore, she
admitted in the Feb. 16 plaintiff’s deposition that
university tape recorders were used to record the sale.
“Well, you don’t want to see cheating in any academic
institution,” August stated in the deposition. But Courteau
said the university shouldn’t be conducting covert
activities. In a July 1997 e-mail produced in discovery, Loprieno
again wrote to Yu that Kaya denied selling any exam. “(Kaya)
and Bodro seem to believe in a “˜Korean
conspiracy,'” Loprieno stated. “I was able to
“˜scare’ him “¦ but he did not
“˜involve’ Bodrogligeti the way we had secretly hoped
for.”

The system In the suit, Bodrogligeti and his lawyers accuse the
Academic Senate system of being flawed and corrupt. On Feb. 16,
1998, Bodrogligeti filed a grievance charge against Yu and Loprieno
with the Academic Senate, alleging they had violated the
professional rights of faculty and had participated in age
discrimination in an attempt to force him to resign. According to
Abrams, the faculty member must file directly with the Privilege
& Tenure Committee, which makes a preliminary investigation and
may lead to a full-blown hearing. Yu was exempt from the charges,
but probable cause was found in Loprieno’s case for failing
to take proper action when notified Bodrogligeti, a member of his
department, had been physically assaulted. On April 23, 1998, Yu
filed a charge with the Academic Senate that Bodrogligeti had
failed to foster honest academic conduct and ensure grades
reflected students’ true merit. In a complaint against
faculty, the Charges Committee serves as a grand jury to determine
if a faculty member has violated university policy, Abrams said.
The Charges Committee found probable cause to uphold the charges,
and recommended to the P & T Committee June 2, 1998 that the
professor be “suspended without pay for a term of no less
than one academic quarter.” In its report, the committee
called Bodrogligeti’s Turkic 160 course “an
embarrassment to the university.” The committee also found
Bodrogligeti facilitated Kaya’s improper actions and told
students to “make your deals with Halil Kaya.”
Bodrogligeti maintains he neither made that remark, nor sold a note
or test in his life.

The history In the spring of 1994, Yu, who served as chair of
the East Asian Language and Culture Program at Irvine, was hired as
the UCLA Dean of Humanities. According to a Feb 9, 2001
plaintiff’s deposition provided by Courteau, Yu said the
university formed a task force in 1992 with the focus of expanding
humanities to include South and Southeast Asian Languages and
Cultures. Bodrogligeti’s lawyers alleged that in order to
promote her program, Yu needed full-time employee positions or
FTEs, tenured professorships. But in the July 1998 interview with
the Bruin, Yu said there was absolutely no truth to that
allegation. “I’ve never once discussed the issue of
retirement with (Bodrogligeti),” she said. Bodrogligeti said
he was targeted because he was near retirement. If he was to retire
or be dismissed, Bodrogligeti said the FTE would stay in his
department. But if a professor is forced to resign, then the
professorship goes back to the Dean of Humanities to redistribute,
he said. Still, e-mails between Yu and Loprieno show that the
professor was the subject of their correspondence. In a May 13,
1994 e-mail to Yu ““ produced through discovery ““
Loprieno called Bodrogligeti an “old-fashioned European
professor” and his attitudes “remnants of the
past.” “If you give us 10 positions in the next
two/three years, I promise you that our courses will become a model
of ideal fusion of high standards on the one hand and pedagogical
attention to the students’ needs on the other!” Soon
after this e-mail, Yu promoted Antonio Loprieno to chair of the
Chairs of Humanities, head of about 20 department chairs. The
lawsuit accuses Yu of favoritism. Another e-mail dated Feb. 13,
1996, from Loprieno to Yu states: “My impression is that, if
cornered, Bodrogligeti might either retire (in which case
we’ll have a celebration dinner…) or decide not to offer
these classes anymore.” Today, Bodrogligeti is asking Judge
Letteau to set a court date so that after four years, the dispute
may finally be resolved. For the online exclusive in-depth version
of this story, please click
here.

A TIMELINE OF CHEATING: FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE
COURTS One professor alleges that UCLA administrators are
the culprits in a string of cheating incidents Please click here for the full-size
infographic SOURCE: Bodrogligeti v. UC Regents, 2001 Original
graphic by VICTOR CHEN/Daily Bruin Web adaptation by SHIRLEY
LAI