Mengyang Li v. Shepherd University President's Office

It is a practice of Age Discrimination in deeming an old scientist (Petitioner)’s very significant scientific contributions prior to his changing career at an old age to teaching [including a publication in journal Nature that significantly advanced Langmuir’s 1917 work of a Chemistry Nobel Prize (awarded in 1932),1 and a publication in journal Science2] as “inadmissible” in evaluating the old scientist for his later application for promotion to Professor rank and denying his promotion solely for this on-paper-reason. It is understandable for an old individual, who made very significant contributions in scientific research earlier and changed to teaching in his/her later career at an old age, to restart at a low rank at a teaching university, since the person still needs professional growth in teaching and since the institution is a teaching university, even if the individual’s professional growth in scientific research before arriving at the teaching university already surpassed the standard of the Professor rank at the teaching university. The individual already paid a 1 M. Y. Li, A. A. Acero, Z. Huang and S. A. Rice, Formation of an ordered Langmuir monolayer by a non-polar chain molecule, Nature 367, 151-153 (1994). 2 E. B. Flom, M. Y. Li, A. Acero, N. Maskil and S. A. Rice, In­ plane structure of the liquid-vapor interface of an alloy: a grazing incidence X-ray diffraction study of Bi:Ga, Science 260, 332-335 (1993).