CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court decided state law bars community colleges from moving too quickly to hire adjunct instructors to teach classes previously assigned to laid off tenured faculty members.
The action stems from a March 2016 decision of the John A. Logan Community College Board to cut 27 tenured faculty members before the following school year. The college is located in Carterville, in far southern Illinois between Carbondale and Marion.
In May 2016, college trustees and the teachers’ union reached a settlement agreement. But in September 2017 seven of the laid-off employees went to Williamson County Circuit Court, alleging the college violated the Public Community College Act by tapping adjunct workers to teach some of their former classes before a 24-month waiting period expired.
Loretta Haggard
| Schuchat Cook & Werner
The college trustees argued the settlement nullified the employee’s petition. The college cited a 1987 Illinois Third District Appellate Court opinion in Biggiam v. Board of Trustees of Community College District 516 to argue their conduct was legal. Although a county judge said the settlement didn’t bar the petition, it did dismiss the complaint in light of Biggiam.
The laid-off faculty members appealed to the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court in downstate Mt. Vernon. After the Fifth District court sided with the employees, the college appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Justice Mary Jane Theis wrote the majority opinion issued Dec. 17; Justices Rita Garman, P. Scott Neville, Michael Burke and Robert Carter concurred. Chief Justice Anne Burke wrote a dissenting opinion. Justice David Overstreet did not participate.
Theis wrote the relevant passage of the law stipulates that “no non-tenure faculty member or other employee with less seniority shall be employed to render a service which a tenured faculty member is competent to render.” She explained adjunct instructors fit the “other employee” clause as they have no seniority under the school’s contract, whereas tenured instructors by definition taught at Logan for at least three consecutive years.
As such, if the college wanted to offer classes which one of the laid-off instructors was qualified to teach — for up to 24 months from the start of the school year in which the layoffs took effect — it was required to offer that spot to one of those workers. The majority disagreed with the college’s distinction between a small class load and a full-time position and said Biggiam was wrongly decided because of its reliance on that differentiation, which Theis wrote isn’t explicitly spelled in the law.
By focusing on the phrase “render a service,” Theis wrote, it becomes clear the statutory language reflects lawmakers’ desires to establish tenure for community college instructors.
“Our ruling today is both compelled by the language of the statute and consistent with the legislature’s goal in creating tenure, to ensure a degree of job security for teachers with experience and ability," Theis wrote.
In her dissent, Anne Burke said the law doesn’t define “employee” or “seniority” and asserted the majority looked narrowly at the end of a statutory clause instead of interpreting the larger context. She said non-tenure track instructors can’t fall under the umbrella of “other employee with less seniority” because their positions accrue no seniority. Had lawmakers intended the majority’s interpretation, she continued, the phrase “with less seniority” wouldn’t have been included.
Burke further said a 1995 Third District Appellate Court ruling in Piatak v. Black Hawk College District 503 supports this view of the law, and that offering one class is not legally the same as re-creating a full faculty position. She said the majority’s position would prevent colleges from laying off any employees unless it eliminates that position’s course assignments from its catalog completely for at least two years.
The college was represented by attorneys Edward J. Kionka, and Rhett T. Barke and Don E. Prosser, of the firm of Gilbert Huffman Prosser Hewson & Barke Ltd., all of Carbondale.
The laid-off tenured teachers are represented by attorney Loretta K. Haggard, of the firm of Schuchat Cook & Werner, of St. Louis.