Darlene Goring, law professor at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, is suing the University on the grounds of racial discrimination after she was denied tenure. Goring said she was denied both full professorship and tenure because of her race and her stance on law school policies, said Jill Craft, Goring’s attorney.”She saw some things, and there were some things being done in the Law Center that she did not agree with, and a lot of those things had to do with race,” Craft said. “Those things are not tolerable.”Goring said she was advised to decline comment by her attorney.The civil suit was filed Sept. 12, and it names the LSU Board of Supervisors and the Law Center as defendants.Goring was hired in August 2002 as a tenure-track professor, according to the suit. The suit says Goring requested to be considered for tenure and promoted to full professor in 2006.Goring was denied tenure because the Promotion and Tenure Committee said a joint request for tenure and full professorship is not compliant with the Promotion and Tenure rules of the Law Center, according to the suit.The suit cites Law Center Vice Chancellor Cheney Joseph’s failure to intervene in a dispute between Goring and a law student in 2007 as one reason she was unfairly denied tenure and promotion. The suit also cites Goring’s removal from her position as captain of moot court and mock trial competitions amid controversy during the 2006-2007 academic year among the reasons she was unfairly denied tenure and promotion.The suit also cites her protest of the spring 2008 policy restricting transfer eligibility of students to those attending schools in the Association of American Law Schools. The restriction would deem Southern University students unable to transfer to the Law Center, the suit said.Goring was again denied promotion to full professor in November 2007, the suit said. According to the suit, Jack Weiss, Law Center chancellor, became “verbally abusive” to Goring in April 2008. Goring said in the suit the disagreement was because Weiss proposed to hire a new professor without advertising the job position. Goring said Weiss’s actions were not compliant with the Law Center’s Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, the suit said.Weiss denied the accusations in a statement, saying Goring’s charges of racial discrimination were “utterly false” and “an insult to the entire faculty of the Law Center.””Far from being hostile to Professor Goring or to any other person of color, the faculty of the Law Center is deeply committed to enhancing and supporting diversity,” Weiss said in a statement.Weiss said in the statement, after his first year as chancellor, minority enrollment increased from 20 to 33 students, and three tenure-track professorships were offered to black candidates. All three candidates declined the positions, Weiss said.—- Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]