The University of Michigan Faculty Handbook

10.H Formal Grievance Procedures

If informal procedures and consultation do not provide resolution of a dispute involving a faculty member, it may be necessary to resort to formal dispute resolution procedures (discussed briefly below).

For information about any form of discrimination or harassment, contact the Office of Institutional Equity at 763-0235.

To obtain a copy of the formal grievance procedure for your unit, contact the dean’s office, the Faculty Senate Office (764-0303), the Office of Academic Human Resources (763-8938), or the Office of the Vice President and General Counsel (764-0304).

Any questions regarding the appropriate venue should be directed to the Academic Human Resources Office (763-8938).

For information about additional services on the UM-Flint and UM-Dearborn campuses, contact the Human Resources office on each campus: Dearborn, (313) 593-5190; Flint, (810) 762-3150.

Formal grievance procedures are available to all faculty with complaints concerning the terms and conditions of their employment. Each school and college has adopted a faculty grievance policy, based on a model policy. The text of the 1998 version of the model policy, which includes changes made in 2003 and 2006, is available on the SACUA website at <www.umich.edu/~sacua/Facres/gdoc.html>. In 2010, a new version of the model policy was approved.

Formal grievance procedures are available when there is a charge that the school or a department has reached a manifestly unfair or illegal decision concerning an aspect of an eligible grievant’s employment. Grievants may challenge all aspects of the decision-making process except those that involve conclusionary judgments about professional competence. The procedures are not available for challenges to the desirability of unit or University policy, nor are they available for claims that are patently frivolous or without merit. The policies all have time limits within which one must bring a claim, so it is important to determine the time limit that applies in each case. Most policies stipulate that a grievant has 180 calendar days from the date the grievant first knew or could reasonably have been expected to know of the decision or event that gave rise to the grievance to request the formation of a formal faculty review board. (This time period is 90 days for the Dearborn Campus and 120 days for the University Library.) The policies typically require a grievant to first try to resolve a dispute informally with the person who made the decision or who has the authority to provide redress before filing a formal grievance.