Reservist sues school, claims dismissal illegal
Filing says deployment news led to decision on his contract
BY LINDA SATTER
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
April 21, 2005

The dean of students at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts in Hot Springs alleged Wednesday in a federal lawsuit that he is being illegally fired because he is a U.S. Army reservist and soon will be deployed overseas.

John I. Kaminar, a lieutenant colonel in the Reserve who began teaching at the school in 1995 and has been the dean since June 2000, says in the lawsuit that he was notified Feb. 25 that the school will not renew his contract after it expires June 30.

Kaminar contends that the "pretextual" reasons given by John Measel, director of the residential school for high-achieving high school juniors and seniors, are meant to disguise violations of federal law, state public policy and Kaminar’s constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth and 14th amendments. He is seeking court orders to prevent the school from hiring a permanent replacement for him in his absence.

Measel said through a spokesman Wednesday that he would not comment on the allegations because he had not yet read the lawsuit.

Melissa Rust, associate general counsel for the University of Arkansas , which began overseeing the school this academic year, said only, "We have received a copy of the lawsuit, and we are in the process of reviewing it and preparing an appropriate response."

The school was created by Act 259 of 1991 and was under the purview of the state Department of Education until Act 1305 of 2003 designated it as part of the university system beginning in the 2004-05 school year.

Little Rock attorney Morgan "Chip" Welch, who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Hot Springs on Kaminar’s behalf, said Measel claims there are "other reasons" besides Kaminar’s military service that the school chose not to renew his contract. Welch mentioned two of the reasons given by Measel as Kaminar’s failure to uniformly punish students caught with marijuana and the fact that the dean did not come to Measel soon enough about an employee who had "personal problems."

But Welch said Kaminar did not have any blemishes in his personnel file until he told other school employees in mid-February that he had just been notified that he might be deployed overseas in late February. The employees passed that information on to Measel, and Measel responded late that month by initiating "a series of acts designed to create pretexts for the non-renewal of the contract," the lawsuit charges.

"Plaintiff is being discriminated against because of his military service and is further being retaliated against because of his prior attempts to invoke the provisions of the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act," the lawsuit says elsewhere.

Kaminar was never told that he was in any danger of being terminated or not having his contract renewed, the suit says.  The lawsuit accuses Measel of having "a history of adverse reaction to the military service of faculty and staff."

Welch said that in early 2004, Measel contacted the office of U.S. Sen. Mike Ross, D-Ark., to complain about the frequency of Kaminar’s military duties. The lawsuit says that in the spring of 2002, Measel placed another employee of the school on probation after chiding him for giving just two weeks’ notice in advance of his annual National Guard service.

Then in April 2004, Measel told Kaminar that he was "worried" that Kaminar and other faculty members might be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan , according to the lawsuit.  Welch said that despite the illegality of firing someone for satisfying military responsibilities, the school failed to afford Kaminar the due-process rights guaranteed faculty members in employee handbooks of the state Department of Education and the university system.

Kaminar, 44, is currently stationed in Oklahoma City , awaiting overseas deployment. He and his wife, Toni, live in Bryant with their children.

With his wife’s help, Kaminar asked to appeal the nonrenewal decision and sought a hearing, but Measel denied his requests, Welch said. The attorney said the state Education Department allows appeals of nonrenewal notices, while the university handbook requires that faculty be notified of nonrenewals by December of the year immediately prior to the nonrenewal.

In the lawsuit, which also names as a defendant B. Alan Sugg, president of the University of Arkansas System , Welch asked that a judge decide on or before May 2 — the date that Kaminar is scheduled to go overseas — whether to issue a restraining order and a preliminary injunction. Both would prevent the school from replacing Kaminar until he returns and all the facts can be aired in a trial.

"Our country owes servicemen such as Lt. Col./Dean Kaminar ‘security’ at home while he is working to help our Army provide security abroad," the lawsuit states.

The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Robert Dawson of the Western District of Arkansas.