THROUGH: Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance

FROM: Grievance Committee for Mr. Gerald Biby

Date:1 0/11/99

Re: Grievance Committee Report

The Grievance Committee met for the first time on August 19, 1999, at the Human Resources department, where it was given the guidelines for the grievance procedure along with all the material (documents, videotapes, and audio tapes) on the grievance filed by Mr. Gerald Biby against Dr. Don Helmuth. Mr. Biby is an employee of the Industrial Agricultural Products Center (IAPC), and Dr. Helmuth works for the Office of Technology Transfer( OTT).

The Grievance Committee's mission was to perform a fair and thorough investigation by reviewing all the documents, listening to all the audio tapes, watching the video tapes, checking the university's web site for written policies and procedures, reviewing Mr. Biby's personnel file, and conducting personal interviews. Other than a 12-page document that was prepared by Dr. Helmuth on September 30, 1999, and received by the committee on October 1, in response to the committee's request made on September 27^th , the majority of the evidence was provided by Mr. Biby himself.

Mr. Biby's grievance against Dr. Don Helmuth addresses the following issues:

1. Violation of Privacy Policy in Executive Memorandum No. 16,

2 Inappropriate handling or release of confidential or other information not authorized for release including, but not limited to client information and personnel information improperly copied from his computer,

3. Threats or acts that affect, or are perceived to affect, the safety, health, or well-being of another person,

4. Failure to maintain satisfactory working relationships with students, the public, other employees or supervisors,

5. Behavior not in the best interest of the university,

6. Violations of other policies, procedures, memorandums that Mr. Biby was unaware of at the time he filed the grievance.

1. Receiving a contrite and unqualified apology from Dr. Helmuth for the events of June 3^rd and 4^th, that can be posted in the staff break room in LW. Chase Hall,

2. Receiving a separate letter of apology from Dr. Helmuth for the accusation made regarding Mr. Biby being in a conspiracy with Com Card International (CCI) to defraud their investor,

3. Sending a letter to all individuals who received copies of his computer files and e-mails to inform them that with the exception of the information regarding CCI, the other information was improperly copied and should be treated as confidential and not discussed with anyone, including being used in any legal proceeding, except by his expressed written consent,

4. Expunging police case file 99-101 9 from the University Police Department files and all information relating to their activities on this case that took place before, during, or after June 3^rd and 4^th and provide a letter to Mr. Biby that the records have been destroyed.

The following individuals were interviewed by the Grievance Committee in the order listed below:

1. Mr. Gerald Biby - the grievant
2. Dr. Don Helmuth - the defendant
3. Dr. Milford Hanna - the grievant's immediate supervisor

Summary of the Issue:

Due to the complex nature of this case, in connection with a legal action filed by CCI against the university which was settled out of court in September 1999, the Grievance Committee attempted to focus on the issues at hand, and not get involved with the legal issues related to the lawsuit. Investigating the case from a legal standpoint was neither in the scope of this grievance case, nor was the Grievance Committee qualified for such an undertaking. The goal of the Grievance Committee was to look at the case from the perspective of unbiased employees of the university, and to determine whether Mr. Biby's complaints against Dr. Helmuth had any merits, and if Dr. Helmuth and other university officials were justified in accusing Mr. Biby of failing to perform his job duties as outlined, and acting against the best interest of the university.

Having spent hours in investigation and deliberations, the Grievance Committee unanimously agrees that Mr. Biby was not treated fairly and justly by Dr. Don Helmuth and the other university officials.

Based on our investigation, the facts gathered, his previous job evaluations, and interview with his immediate supervisor, the Grievance Committee has found Mr. Biby to be an exemplary employee of the university. One who is very hardworking, extremely productive, intelligent, professional, and honest. We believe that Mr. Biby has always been working in the best interest of the university. We do not believe that he was pursuing his self-interests, or in any way working against the UNL's best interest in the CCI case. We believe that he was trying to save a process from being ignored, or put off, or simply not being addressed in a timely manner by the Office of Technology Transfer.

We believe that Mr. Biby is a trustworthy employee who was trying to perform his job duties the best he could under the limited direction and guidance available to him at the time by OTT. We were unable to find any evidence to prove his dishonesty and insincerity. On the contrary, the evidence indicated that Mr. Biby was working for the best interest of the university and its clients, and he had no intentions of harming the university.

The committee that the university's treatment of Mr. Biby was very extreme and unfair. We do not believe that Mr. Biby, as we have come to know him, is a violent and irrational person. Therefore, we believe that the presence of an armed police officer during his computer search was unnecessary, humiliating and insulting, particularly in his case where no search warrant was obtained by the police department. Mr. Biby had been extremely cooperative with the university and with Dr. Helmuth's office from the start, which did not support their position in treating him as a criminal by putting an armed police officer in front of his office door, in full view of his peers and colleagues.

Recommendation:

It is indeed unfortunate how the course of events unfolded as they did in this case. Had there been more direct and timely communication between IAPC and OTT, most of these unpleasant events would never have taken place.

Sadly, the committee learned last week that Dr. Nelson on September 23, 1999, had placed Mr. Biby on administrative leave until the matter was resolved. Dr. Nelson had indicated in his letter of September 23 that he was even considering dismissal of Mr. Biby from his current position.

The Grievance Committee believes that Mr. Biby not only does not deserve to be released, but should be praised by the entire UNL community, for his unfailing professionalism, cooperation, integrity, perseverance, and honesty. He should be commended for believing in justice and in a fair system at UNL, and for fighting for his rights by not giving up. The University of Nebraska will make a grave and serious mistake if they continue to let such an outstanding employee be treated so unfairly. Dismissal of Mr. Biby will be a loss to the university.

The Grievance Committee believes that it was not right and just for OTT to single out Mr. Biby as the culprit when there was a lot of blame to go around for everybody including their own staff members.

The Grievance Committee recommends the following:

1. Mr. Biby should be reinstated to his position as Technical Transfer Coordinator for IAPC,

The committee believes that Dr. Helmuth, and the university attorneys should not have doubted Mr. Biby's honesty, integrity, and good will towards the university based on his past performance record and the outstanding performance evaluations found in his personnel file. In these evaluations, Mr. Biby's supervisors had praised him as an 'outstanding' employee who was an excellent representative of UNL in dealing with its clients.

2. Dr. Helmuth should send Mr. Biby a letter of apology for all his accusations against ME Biby and the events of June 3~ and 4~,

We were unable to find any evidence against Mr. Biby to justify the presence of an armed police officer at his office. The committee found out that Mr. Wood, per Dr. Helmuth's recommendation, had asked for a police representative during the search of Mr. Biby's computer files. We were unable to find any written UNL policy that would have justified this anion. Furthermore, the police officer did not even have a search warrant.

3. A letter should be sent out by Mr. Wood or other university officials to everybody who received copies of Mr. Biby' s computer files to delete/destroy any files/ records that were not related to the CCI case.

According to Dr. Helmuth's statement to Mr. Biby on June 3^rd, Mr. Biby only had to identify the CCI related files to the person who was copying the tales. Unfortunately, that person was given different instructions and copied Mr. Biby's entire emails, and a lot more confidential files on lAPC's other clients (not related to the CCI case), which may put UNI at risk This dearly was in violation of Dr. Helmuth's statement.

The committee does not believe that Mr. Biby had anything to hide, and he certainly had provided an enormous amount of information to OTT as requested. Mr. Biby had (and still has) the most accurate, organized, and complete documentation that we have ever seen.

Again the committee was unable to support the action taken by OTT in mistrusting Mr. Biby and his work ethics.

4. If there currently is a police case ale under Mr. Biby's name, if possible, it should be destroyed, and a letter sent to Mr. Biby to inform him of this action.
 

The committee believes that getting the university police involved in searching Mr. Biby's computer was not justified. No university employee with such an outstanding record as Mr. Biby, should be insulted and humiliated like that. We were unable to find any evidence indicating that Mr. Biby had committed any criminal or violent acts. We do not believe that he was a threat to anybody, and therefore, the police officer's presence was unnecessary.

CC: Department of Human Resources

Letters and Memos that originated from others, addressed to Gerald Biby were scanned using OmniPage 7.0.  Therefore certain features, i.e. letter head and signatures are not present in the documents listed in this chronicle. Also at the type face may have been changes to make the documents more readable in HTML.   Originals or copies of documents exists for all documents presented.