Name Theresa Cameron | ||
Died 2012, North Attleborough, Massachusetts, United States Books Foster care odyssey, Learning to Live: A Black Wo, Houston 261 Success | ||
Theresa Ann Cameron (January 29, 1954 - May 2012) was the first African-American woman to be awarded tenure in the College of Design at Arizona State University when she achieved that accomplishment in 2000. After spending her entire childhood in foster care, Dr. Cameron put herself through college and eventually obtained her Doctorate in Design from Harvard's Graduate School of Design in 1991. Her childhood experience is chronicled in her book Foster Care Odyssey in America: A Black Girl's Story published in 2002.
On September 7, 2007, ASU President Michael M. Crow fired Dr. Theresa Cameron, an Associate Professor with tenure, for "plagiarism of syllabi" and two other charges. Cameron's firing is the only known case of a tenured faculty member being fired for using another instructor's syllabus without attribution. The move to fire Dr. Cameron was strongly opposed by the University Faculty Senate.
Dr. Theresa Cameron filed suit on August 13, 2006, in the U.S. District Court in Phoenix seeking an injunction and other relief against the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona State University, alleging violations of federal civil rights and employment laws that make it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of disability, gender or race. Cameron sued ASU for discrimination, but lost the case against ASU in May, 2011. Dr. Cameron died in 2012.