A 73-year-old white physics professor at Alabama’s Tuskegee University is suing the historically black college for what he says is age and racial discrimination.

Marshall Burns’ 12-page lawsuit, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, contends his salary is 30 to 50 percent lower than that of Tuskegee’s younger professors despite his more than four decades of tenure at the private university.

The physics scholar began working at Tuskegee as an assistant professor in 1976, according to the lawsuit, and was promoted to full professor in 1980. Burns published a textbook that was recognized by the state legislature and was named Teacher of the Year in 1989, the complaint claims.

That same year, Burns’ lawsuit claims that when the school was seeking more money fromInfluenza pandemics: past, present and future.
Influenza A virus is well known for its capability for genetic changes either through antigen drift or antigen shift. Antigen shift is derived from reassortment of gene segments between viruses, and may result in an antigenically novel virus that is capable of causing a worldwide pandemic. As we trace backwards through the history of influenza pandemics, a repeating pattern can be observed, namely, a limited wave in the first year followed by global spread in the following year. In the 20th century alone, there were three overwhelming pandemics, in 1918, 1957 and 1968, caused by H1N1 (Spanish flu), H2N2 (Asian flu) and H3N2 (Hong Kong flu), respectively. In 1957 and 1968, excess mortality was noted in infants, the elderly and persons with chronic