Oct 31, 2013 11:03 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A group of law professors at a Cleveland college are pursuing legal action against their school's administration for choosing a symbolic way of calling the faculty members "Satan," the Wall Street Journal reported.

The complaining professors received a pay raise of $666, a figure in the Christian faith known as the Devil's number. The raise came from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law's (CMCL), a chapter of Cleveland State University, Dean, Craig M. Boise.

The school's chapter of the American Association of University Professors has decided to file an unfair labor practice charge with Ohio's State Employment Relations Board (SERB) in August. According to the complaint, six people received the merit raise and two did not receive one at all.

"In effect Dean Boise has called AAUP's organizers and AAUP Satan," the complaint says. "Dean Boise's actions are a poorly veiled threat in opposition to AAUP's organizing and concerted activities."

The complaint also alleged that the dean used the satanic raise figure as a method of retaliation against the professors who led the faculty unionization when they created their collective bargaining group.

The story was recently picked up TaxProf Blog, the raise was calculated happened to come to $666, at least according to the school.

"The Charging Party cannot point to a single directive, or even a reference, from the Dean to a '666′ or satanic merit pay amount for certain allegedly union-active faculty members," the school said in a statement. "The $666 merit award was the result of mathematical division, not anti-union animus."

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported that originally, the lowest pat raise was going to be $727, but had to be recalculated because of an incorrect salary figure in the merit pool. CSU explained the corrected recalculation as part of a seven-page response from the school's Human Resources officer Jesse Drucker.

SERB will hold a meeting in November or December to determine if Boise acted with probable cause to get back at the professors, or if it was just a strange mathematical coincidence.

If SERB finds probably cause, then they will order a hearing to take place, a filing will be made with the Ohio Attorney General's Office and judge will oversee the case.

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