Researchers laid off from the University of Texas Medical Branch in the wake of Hurricane Ike are not taking things lying down. Some of them are now suing to get the job cuts revoked.

The Texas Faculty Association has filed a lawsuit arguing the cutting of over 3,000 jobs was authorised at a closed-doors meeting, when under the Texas Open Meetings Act “deliberations concerning a class or group of employees … must be held in open session” (AP).

UT has denied the charge. “Our lawyers believe we acted within the law of the Open Meetings Act,” says Anthony de Bruyn, a spokesman for the University of Texas System (Houston Chronicle).

In an editorial the Chronicle says:

The board’s decision to cut 3,800 jobs at UTMB is viewed by most Galvestonians — rightly, we would conclude — as a body blow to a healthy, stable future. It is only adding insult to Galveston’s injury that the regents’ process leading to the job cuts was conducted in secret — and may well have been in violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act.

…

At the very least, regents violated the spirit of openness in government required by state law. Decisions about job cuts involving thousands of public employees and millions of public dollars at an institution of historic importance should be made in plain view.