Oliver Collins v. University of Notre Dame Du La

Hamilton, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Oliver Collins was a tenured professor of electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame. In 2010, a faculty committee found after a hearing that Dr. Collins had misused grant money by purchasing equipment other than that in his grant proposals and then using the equipment for personal purposes. The committee concluded that his actions warranted "dismissal for serious cause" under the Academic Articles incorporated in Dr. Collins's faculty contract. At the end of the university's internal review processes, the president of Notre Dame ultimately…