The entrance to the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine on Feb. 1, 2023.
A MSU professor filed a lawsuit against the university and several other individuals, claiming discrimination when he was removed as a head of the department.
In 2017, Matti Kiupel, a tenured professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, was suspended for two months for unwanted sexual contact and comments at a veterinary conference the year prior. He was then ordered to undergo sexual misconduct training and removed as section head for anatomic pathology, according to the Academic Sexual Misconduct Database.
Kiupel was also subject to an investigation which began in December 2021 after he was accused of using sexual innuendo while teaching. According to the civil case complaint filed by Kiupel’s legal defense, Kiupel claims he was not aware of any sexual meaning to his comments and did not intend them in a sexual nature.
Following this, staff of the college, including former dean Birgit Puschner, began to impose sanctions against Kiupel, which have not been lifted since.
Kiupel and his legal defense claims that the actions of these parties are a violation of his rights under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Kiupel is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and according to himself and his legal defense, his impairment limits his social communication and interaction.
This causes Kiupel to have a lack of awareness of normal workplace rules, according to the civil case complaint form.
The sanctions include, according to the civil case complaint form: work relating to teaching in-person and virtually to cease until the conclusion of the case, direct communication with residents and graduate students to be forbidden, access to the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory as well as the College of Veterinary Medicine to be restricted until further notice.
The civil case complaint also alleges that Kiupel was kept in the dark while these sanctions were being imposed, with explanations for them not being given for months.
As a result of these sanctions that progressed through the following years, Kiupel has filed a lawsuit against the following parties:
Michigan State University.
Michigan State University Board of Trustees.
Teresa K. Woodruff, interim president of the university at the time of these events.
Birgit Puschner, former dean of the college of veterinary medicine.
Dalen W. Agnew, professor and chair of the department at the college of veterinary medicine.
Kimberly Dodd, director of the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
Nicole J. Schmidtke, Title IX coordinator in the Office of Institutional Equity at the time of these events.
Douglas Freeman, interim dean of the college of veterinary medicine.
Kathyann Lewless, director of MSU’s Offices of Academic HR.
Thomas K. Jeitschko, senior associate provost at MSU.
Kiupel seeks damages and injunctive relief including removal of placed sanctions, expunging of his disciplinary records, to destroy of all documents and records from his personal file concerning the allegations and any related investigations, reinstatement of his rights and responsibilities as a tenured professor and a declaration that he did not commit sexual harassment and violate MSU’s policy.
MSU spokesperson Mark Bullion said the university has no comment on the lawsuit at this time.
