by TAA Staff

BENNINGTON COLLEGE in Vermont agreed in December 2000 to pay 17 former professors $1.89 million. They were among the 26 whom the college's president, Elizabeth Coleman, fired in 1994 for mediocre teaching. She justified her action as part of Bennington's retrenchment amid a $1 million deficit and declining enrollment. Nineteen of the fired professors disagreed, filing a $3.7 million suit in Vermont court, asserting that Colemen had violated their academic freedom.

Two of the 19 died during the nearly five-year ordeal that ended when the college offered the settlement and apologized to the plaintiffs. Bennington admitted that the faculty members' performance had not merited dismissal and regretted "any remarks regarding the faculty members which may have been misinterpreted as impugning any of them or implying that they were responsible for any of the college's problems." The settlement gratified Marc Lendler, a former professor of politics, who maintained along with the other plaintiffs that Coleman had fired them for disagreeing with her.

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