## Facts

- Lilian Willens was employed by the University of Massachusetts as a faculty member under successive year-to-year appointments.
- After the University denied her tenure, she claimed a contractual entitlement to tenure based on an alleged institutional practice of “de facto tenure.”
- Willens’s May 1, 1967 appointment letter stated she would receive two years’ credit toward tenure and identified 1970–1971 as her tenure decision year.
- The University corrected the letter’s tenure-timing statement before any tenure decision point was reached.
- The University maintained a formal, highly structured tenure regime and submitted sworn testimony that no de facto tenure system existed.
- Willens brought federal suit alleging (1) a contractual right to tenure (and corresponding property interest) and (2) denial of due process in the tenure decision.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the University and denied a motion to amend or alter judgment under Rule 59(e).

## Issues

1. Whether Willens had a contractual right to tenure, and thus a protected property interest, based on an alleged de facto tenure system.
2. Whether the corrected hiring letter could support an entitlement to tenure through equitable estoppel.
3. Whether the denial of tenure violated due process absent a contractual or statutory entitlement, including any property or liberty interest.
4. Whether the district court abused its discretion in denying the Rule 59(e) motion.

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the University.
- The court held there was no genuine dispute of material fact that a de facto tenure system existed; Willens produced no evidence sufficient to counter the University’s uncontroverted sworn testimony.
- The court declined to consider an estoppel theory raised for the first time on appeal; in any event, a corrected misstatement in the hiring letter, corrected before prejudice, did not support estoppel.
- Because Willens lacked a contractual or statutory entitlement to tenure, she had no protected property interest and showed no cognizable liberty-interest deprivation; her due process claim failed.
- The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Rule 59(e) motion.

## Legal Principles

- A faculty member may claim a constitutionally protected property interest in continued employment only upon showing a legitimate entitlement grounded in state law, contract, or established institutional rules or mutually explicit understandings; unilateral expectations are insufficient.
- Alleged “de facto tenure” must be supported by evidence of institutional practice; a formal, structured de jure tenure system can weigh against inferring a parallel de facto tenure regime.
- Equitable estoppel requires a representation and reasonable detrimental reliance; a hiring-letter misstatement corrected before any prejudice does not establish estoppel.
- Summary judgment is proper where the movant’s evidence negates a material factual premise and the nonmovant fails to produce evidence creating a genuine dispute.
- Appellate courts generally do not consider theories not presented to the trial court; Rule 59(e) relief is reviewed for abuse of discretion and is not a vehicle to introduce available but previously unraised theories.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed judgment for the University because Willens failed to show any evidentiary basis for de facto tenure or any other enforceable entitlement to tenure; without a protected property or liberty interest, the tenure denial did not implicate procedural due process, and the post-judgment ruling stood.


Willens v. Univ. of Mass., 570 F.2d 403 (1st Cir. 1978)