IRVINE : UCI Faces Suit by Former Lecturer

A former Chinese language lecturer filed suit Monday against UC Irvine, charging that university officials failed to interview him for a post he had held for several years and instead rigged the hiring process to favor the wife of a new professor.

Richard M. Liao, a lecturer who now teaches Chinese part time at Santa Monica College, earlier this year lost his bid to regain the lecturer post through a union grievance procedure.

His lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, seeks reinstatement and back pay for the past school year, said his attorney, Lawrence R. Rosenzweig of Santa Monica.

Also named in the lawsuit are UCI Chancellor Jack W. Peltason, the UC Board of Regents and UC President David P. Gardner.

University counsel Diane Fields Geocaris declined comment on the suit, saying she had not yet seen it.

Rosenzweig said UCI doesn’t take issue with Liao’s teaching abilities, yet he was not allowed to interview for a job he had held for five years until June, 1990.

“The sum total of his personnel file is positive, and yet he wasn’t given a chance to reapply for the job,” Rosenzweig said. “Instead, they hired people they interviewed at a convention in Chicago.”

Rosenzweig said the university also violated its own teaching requirement when they hired Emily Huang as a Chinese language instructor. Huang, wife of a UCI professor of linguistics, does not have a master’s degree, said UCI librarian Daniel Tsang, Liao’s union representative. Liao has two master’s degrees, he said.