Former MU professor asks court to review firing

A University of Missouri professor fired over his behavior around students and faculty is asking a court to review the school’s decision.

Dr. Galen Suppes, a former engineering professor at MU, asked the Cole County Circuit Court to review the decisions made by MU, the UM System president and the Board of Curators. The Curators eventually voted to fire Suppes in August after a faculty panel upheld nine different violations against him.

A jury ruled in favor of the UM System in a lawsuit against Suppes earlier this month. System leaders claimed Suppes violated intellectual property laws over some of his inventions, and the jury awarded $600,000 to the UM System over the issue.

Suppes’s new lawsuit claims the University’s decision to fire him was wrong for several reasons. The petition called it “an abuse of discretion,” and was inappropriately based on hearsay evidence. Dr. Garnett Stokes, who was interim chancellor of MU when she decided to fire Suppes in May, is also named in the lawsuit. Stokes agreed with the MU Faculty Committee on Tenure’s decision that Suppes had “intimidation, harassment and/or bullying of students,” “exploitation and/or coercion of students,” and “severe and habitual neglect of teaching duties,” among others.