Dr. Laura Beny
A University of Michigan Law School professor has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court decision that dismissed her employment discrimination lawsuit, citing what an ethics expert characterized as "illegal and unconstitutional" conduct by university officials.
Dr. Laura Beny, an African-American female tenured professor, filed a petition this week challenging the "honest belief" doctrine that allowed courts to dismiss her claims of racial and gender discrimination, retaliation, and due process violations.
The petition centers on allegations that then-Dean Mark West disciplined Beny in 2022 after baselessly suggesting she might have access to weapons — creating what Professor Richard W. Painter, former White House Chief Ethics Lawyer under President George W. Bush, called a "dangerous racial stereotype" violating Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
"For a state official, particularly a law dean, with no basis whatsoever, to state in a disciplinary letter that the professor who is being disciplined might have access to weapons is an act of intimidation," Painter wrote in testimony submitted with the case.
Beny was hired in 2003 as only the second African-American female tenure-track professor in the law school's then-144-year history. She holds a J.D. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and serves as the Earl Warren DeLano Professor of Law.
According to the petition, West admitted in deposition testimony that he had "never gone through the specifics" of Regents Bylaw 5.09, which establishes mandatory procedures for disciplining tenured faculty. Beny was the only tenured professor West disciplined during his more than 10 years as dean.
