Dismissal efforts target professor

ATHENS, Ga. -- A University of Georgia economics professor was so aggressive in his sexual advances toward an undergraduate at a downtown bar last September that her friends had to circle her and fend him off, a student told a faculty panel Wednesday.

At the same social gathering, the professor, Nadeem Naqvi, approached a group of students and asked if they had any drugs, according to a second student.

"I don't recall exactly what he asked for," he said.

The students were two in a series of witnesses that university attorneys called Wednesday as rare dismissal proceedings got under way for Mr. Naqvi, accused of sexual harassment, professional incompetence and neglect of duty during his tenure at the flagship university.

Mr. Naqvi is contesting a January ruling from a faculty panel that recommended he lose tenure.

Testimony from state witnesses, including the former and current heads of the university economics department, painted a picture of a promising, hard-working young academic who began losing his grip on his job in the mid-1990s, cutting classes, delaying the return of senior term papers and showing up to work with beer on his breath.

"It looked like he was doing drugs," said Charles Delorme, the economics department head. "He would take on too many papers."

However, Mr. Naqvi's attorney, Curtis Shoemaker, said Mr. Naqvi's witnesses Thursday painted a different portrait of the international trade expert will emerge: a popular teacher who oversaw three times as many senior papers as other economics professors and the sole minority in a department where other professors have canceled classes, fielded sexual harassment complaints and gotten a DUI but emerged unscathed by official discipline.

Mr. Shoemaker said Mr. Naqvi was singled out by a department head who built a file on Mr. Naqvi at the request of a university attorney. He said a possible cause for the close scrutiny was a federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint that Mr. Naqvi filed last August, alleging the former dean of the Terry College of Business, J. Don Edwards, had labeled Mr. Naqvi the "2 percent Indian," referring to Mr. Naqvi's race and his annual raise.

Mr. Edwards has denied the claim, but the discrimination complaint is active.

"One of the reasons this proceeding is occurring is to get rid of him, to discredit him because he's got an EEOC complaint against the university," Mr. Shoemaker said, addressing reporters after the hearing. "It's certainly apparent to me that there's animosity toward him. It may be motivated by the fact that he's an Asian Indian person."

Mr. Naqvi will take the stand and deny the university's claims later in the hearing, which is expected to end sometime today or Saturday. The panel's decision will be forwarded to the university president, who can uphold or reject it. A negative presidential vote can be appealed to the state Board of Regents.