I recently reported that St. Thomas University has reinstated my client Professor Gilbert. Unfortunately, they continue to violate her rights and act in bad faith in several ways.
Perhaps the most egregious violation of Professor Gilbert’s rights by STU is the release of her reinstatement letter, a confidential personnel document, to the ABA Journal, with the specific intent that portions of the letter would be made public. The reinstatement letter also serves as notice of the school’s intent to institute dismissal procedures and contains a list of “Facts Giving Rise to the Question as to Whether Dismissal is Warranted.” The release of such a letter is contrary to law, contrary to STU policy, and a gross violation of Professor Gilbert’s privacy rights. STU’s intent, which unfortunately the ABA Journal facilitated, was that some of the more salacious accusations would be reported, thereby damaging Professor Gilbert’s reputation, and hindering her ability to find future employment, should she end up departing STU. Specifically, the letter contained a new allegation, which was not part of the previous notice of termination, that Professor Gilbert had an “inappropriate relationship” with a recently graduated law student. STU knew that the previous termination letter which did not include such an allegation had been made public as part of the lawsuit I filed on Professor Gilbert’s behalf (I also posted it here on TFL), so that the inclusion of this new allegation would be considered newsworthy. However, unlike the other allegations in the letter, which contain at least some reference to actual facts, this accusation is completely fact-free. The alleged student is not named, and no details are provided as to what made the alleged relationship inappropriate. It is alleged that the relationship “violated multiple policies in the Law School Faculty Handbook” but no specific policies or provisions of the Handbook are mentioned. To be clear, Professor Gilbert categorically denies having any inappropriate relationship with any former student, ever. In fact, Professor Gilbert has no idea who or what STU is talking about. In our view, this is a clear effort to defame Professor Gilbert with intentionally false statements. In light of their outrageous conduct, STU has been advised to expect a defamation lawsuit and to immediately cease and desist from further defamatory actions.
The second violation of Professor Gilbert’s rights is the University’s efforts to silence her in violation of her First Amendment rights and her rights to academic freedom. Yesterday, Professor Gilbert posted a brief statement attributed to me on a law professor listserv. The statement was just an excerpt from my post here on TFL:
I am pleased to report that on August 27, STU rescinded the termination letter and reinstated Professor Lauren Gilbert with full pay and benefits, including back pay. Although the University has notified her of its intent to seek Professor Gilbert’s termination, they have agreed to provide her with the full range of due process rights set forth in the law school faculty handbook as we demanded in our Complaint for Declaratory Judgment. We continue to maintain that there is no adequate cause for termination and are confident that Professor Gilbert will be retained by a jury of her tenured faculty peers.
Within hours of this statement being posted, I receive an email from STU’s outside counsel demanding that this innocuous statement be taken down, stating “We need the statement removed ASAP.” The email falsely claimed that the statement violated the Model Code.
Additional violations of Professor Gilbert’s rights are in the reinstatement letter (the “letter”) itself. The letter, while purporting to comply with the Model Code of Procedure for Academic Freedom and Tenure (“Model Code”), substantially deviates from the procedures described therein, and infringes upon Professor Gilbert’s rights as a tenured faculty member. The letter, as noted in the ABA Journal story, essentially bars Professor Gilbert from campus, stating “you will not return to the St. Thomas University campus, including but not limited to the Law School, throughout the entirety of the process.”
The Model Code does not authorize any such barment from campus, and, in fact, states that a member “shall not be suspended from his [sic] previously assigned institutional duties during the time necessary to resolve [a dismissal matter] unless continued discharge of those duties clearly constitutes a threat of (immediate) harm to himself or others.”
St. Thomas University had hoped that the ABA Journal would mention this barment, as it would carry with it the implication that she was somehow a danger or a threat to others. Nothing could be further from the truth. The letter falsely suggests that this provision was agreed upon by myself as Professor Gilbert’s counsel, although I agreed to nothing of the sort. Before STU responded to the ABA’s request for an update on Professor Gilbert’s situation, I specifically advised STU’s counsel in writing that Professor Gilbert had never agreed “that she would not return to the campus ‘through the entirety of this process’” and that the attempted barment was a “clear violation of the Model Code” and “we are not agreeing to an indefinite ban from the campus grounds.” I further advised STU’s counsel: “As a gesture of good faith, I have decided not . . .to. . . raise the concerns about the University’s continuing violation of my client’s rights under the contract. In fact, I have made a public filing with the Court saying that you are providing full compliance.” In retaliation for her innocuous post on the listserv, they released her reinstatement letter/termination notice to a national news magazine.
Unfortunately, while Professor Gilbert and I have acted in good faith, STU has not. Indeed, they continue to act lawlessly and are engaging in dirty tricks that should be beneath the dignity of a University, particularly a University owned by a Catholic archdiocese and committed to upholding Catholic values. Unfortunately, by quoting and paraphrasing isolated statements in the reinstatement letter without context, the ABA Journal has become complicit in STU’s campaign of innuendo and insinuation. When I informed the ABA that they had been played and used by STU, Editor-Publisher John O'Brien immediately agreed to give me an opportunity to provide a comment/response, and promised to "update it appropriately". When they do so, I will post a link to the updated story.
UPDATE: Here is a link to the revised ABA Journal Article. Stay tuned for further developments.
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