Apte

The Regents of the University of California (hereafter University) appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Alameda County granting a peremptory writ of mandate in favor of a former employee, Robert Apte, with the rank of associate professor, in the school of public health, at the University of California, Berkeley. The litigation was precipitated by a faculty vote of department A of the school of public health on May 8, 1979. At that time, Apte served as director of two teaching programs—Community Mental Health (hereafter CMH) and Native American Program in Mental Health Planning and Administration (hereafter Native American Program)—and derived 50 percent of his salary from each position. The faculty vote terminated the CMH program effective June 30, 1979, and the Native American Program effective June 30, 1980, with the incidental effect of reducing Apte’s faculty position 50 percent for the 1979-1980 academic year and eliminating it entirely thereafter.

Apte appealed the decision under the University’s grievance procedure for nonsenate academic appointees to a three-member hearing committee chaired by the dean of the law school. The committee heard three days…