Have a public search for the Diversity VP job – a nutty idea?

6/3/2010: Martinez makes a lot of his Hispanic background. But he doesn’t speak Spanish.
5/31/2010: See update below on OIED hiring issues, details on this later.
5/25/2010: See update below on NIH grants. Almost unbelievable, but all from report.nih.gov.
5/23/2010: See update below on Associate Professor / tenure. 
5/20/2010: Here are a few of the problems with current Vice President for Diversity Charles Martinez:

• No Affirmative Action search for his diversity job: He was appointed as an interim inside hire, and after 5 years UO still has not had an open, public search that followed the standard affirmative action rules. This is an obvious violation of UO’s AA hiring rules. Given that his job is VP for Diversity, it’s also hilarious.
• No Affirmative Action for his 2009 Associate Professor in the College of Education position either. From what we can tell Provost Bean and Russ Tomlin simply created a new tenured associate professor position out of nothing, just for Martinez. If there was any advertisement, search or any other attempt to follow UO’s AA hiring rules, it’s well hidden.
• Overcommitment with UO and NIH: He has a 0.75 time appointment at UO. He’s got another 0.65 time job off campus at OSLC. This violates UO’s conflict of commitment rules, common sense, and the law of addition. While supposedly working 0.75 time as UO’s VP for diversity he been the Principal Investigator on $5.3 million in NIH grants, run through OSLC. This means UO does not get the ICC money for these grants, and Martinez can double dip on his salary. During this time Martinez has apparently secured $0 in federal grants for OIED. This is why it’s called a “conflict of commitment.” Provost Bean gives him a special exemption from the rules. Then UO claims the documentation of this exemption is exempt from public disclosure. Right.
• Tenure: Martinez has worked since 2005 as a non-tenure-track administrator. Last year UO put him up for tenure and made him an associate professor in the Education school, in violation of the UO tenure policies. Provost Bean then refused to show the Faculty Personnel Committee his letter, or even tell them that he had given Martinez tenure – out of embarrassment?
• No written job description: Last week, 2 years after we asked the UO administration, Martinez did finally come up with a job description, and he even posted it on his web page. Thanks Dr. Martinez, this is step one in an open AA compliant search for your replacement.
• Performance: Even given the hours he does spend at UO, Martinez has been remarkably ineffective at getting external funding or developing new programs to increase diversity. He’s had this job 5 years, and his contribution has been a series of “Diversity Action Plans” which have cost millions, sucked up huge amounts of faculty, staff, and OA time, and accomplished almost nothing.
• Hiring problems at OIED: OIED is currently involved in three open searches. (Not for Martinez of course – at UO, open AA compliant searches are just for the little people.) We’ve heard about complaints and AA issues with the procedures for two of these searches.

Now that his longtime ally Melinda Grier bas been summarily fired, Martinez is suddenly,  understandably, and visibly nervous about keeping his $220,000 sweetheart deal. He should be. So he is trying to convince the local diversity groups that he is their only friend at UO, that UO is blocking his diversity efforts, and that his enemies are trying to fire him because they are racist nuts.

Very constructive strategy, Dr. Martinez. Actually, we’re trying to get you fired because we care about diversity, and you have wasted 5 years and millions of dollars while lining your own pockets. Let’s have a public job announcement and an affirmative action compliant open search, and see if you really are the best person to hold this important job. Does that idea scare you?