SANTA ANA – A Superior Court judge has ordered South Orange County Community College District to rewrite a new hiring policy that allows the human-resources director to unilaterally change the scores given to job candidates by the faculty hiring committee.

The district also must change interview questions and investigate and punish committee members for breaches of confidentiality.

The lawsuit was filed jointly by the academic senates of Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges and is the first time faculty at the two colleges have joined together to sue their district, according to faculty attorney Wendy Gabriella.

District Chancellor Raghu Mathur said district officials are reviewing the ruling.

"We will comply with the judge's direction and, of course, we will comply with the law," Mathur said. "We will do whatever the court feels is appropriate for us to do."

In his ruling Friday, Orange County Superior Court Judge Clay M. Smith did not rule on the constitutionality of the new hiring policy, but he gave the district and the faculty groups 90 days to jointly draft a new set of rules. Smith agreed that state law requires district administrators to seek the input of the faculty when writing the rules.

"This represents a significant setback to a board of trustees that has a history of ignoring or overriding the counsel of its own faculty," said Greg Bishopp, president of Irvine Valley College's academic senate. He added, however, that he "did not view the ruling necessarily as a victory."

"It is a sad thing when a college board loses respect for the integrity and honesty of its own faculty, but we hope during the next three months we can restore some semblance of collegiality."

Faculty members had complained the district did not give them an adequate opportunity to help write the new policy before it was adopted by a split vote of the board of trustees. Court records show that the district created a committee to draft a new hiring policy in February 2002 but did not show it to any faculty members until May 2002.

In January, Mathur told the board of trustees that the district needed a new hiring policy because of long-standing concerns that all applicants were not being treated "in a fair and respectful fashion."

He also raised concerns about confidentiality and improper screening of candidates.

Faculty members said the new hiring policy was unnecessary and actually was created because of controversy concerning Mathur's own selection as chancellor, when news he was to be selected despite not being the top-scoring candidate leaked out.

The district had argued that it did not have to confer with faculty on the new policy because state law required such conferences only before July 1, 1990 - an argument the judge called "absurd."