A second top UMKC pharmacy school professor is ousted following university review
The University of Missouri-Kansas City on Friday announced the ouster of a second long-time professor from its pharmacy school.
Anil Kumar, a former pharmacy school chair, was fired from the school “following a rigorous process that included a recommendation by a 10-member faculty committee,” UMKC said in a statement.
The university would say only that Kumar was “dismissed for cause,” and declined to say what led to Kumar being under review by the committee, citing privacy laws that impact personnel matters.
University of Missouri System President Mun Y. Choi and the UM Board of Curators upheld the UMKC Campus Faculty Committee on Tenure recommendation to terminate Kumar “for cause.”
“When issues are reported with members of our faculty, we investigate and take appropriate actions as dictated by UMKC policy and the Collected Rules and Regulations of the University of Missouri System,” Chancellor Mauli Agrawal said in a statement.
Until last year, Kumar had chaired the pharmacy school’s division of pharmacology, which has since been merged with the school’s division of pharmaceutical sciences.
Kumar is the second top UMKC pharmacy school professor to be let go this year.
In January, former pharmacy professor Ashim Mitra, who had been accused of exploiting foreign graduate students in his lab, resigned after being sued by UMKC for allegedly stealing a student’s research.
The university’s lawsuit accused Mitra of secretly selling the stolen research to a pharmaceutical company, defrauding the university of millions of dollars.
In November The Star reported that for decades Mitra had compelled his students to act as his personal servants. Mitra had been accused of making students bus tables at social events, take care of his lawn and perform other chores at his home.
Mitra was immediately suspended from the university. He officially left in March.
