With Jury Trial Pending In Termination Of Tenured Law Prof, University Sues Over His WSJ Op-Ed And Lawyer’s Press Release

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  FIRE, Ohio Northern Sues Professor for Having the Audacity to Defend His Rights in Court:

After terminating Scott Gerber without telling him why, Ohio Northern University filed a lawsuit to shut him up.

Following Professor Scott Gerber’s vocal opposition to his school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, Ohio Northern University ordered campus police to yank him out of class and march him to the dean, who demanded Gerber’s immediate resignation. A judge decried the school’s apparent “callous disregard for due process,” but because Gerber had the courage to fight back in court, ONU took things even further — filing a federal lawsuit to shut him up.

But Gerber is not having it. A longtime critic of ONU’s initiatives around DEI, Gerber’s objections made him a target of administrators, who launched an investigation into him in January 2023. From then until his sudden termination, ONU outright refused to disclose the specific accusations against him. When the school finally told Gerber he lacked “collegiality,” FIRE explained to ONU that this charge looked a lot like retaliation for his views on DEI, which would be a stark violation of the university’s commitment to academic freedom. We called on ONU in March, and again in May, to provide Gerber with the specifics of its collegiality concerns, to no avail.

Out of work and still wondering what he did wrong, Gerber took ONU to court. His complaint centered on the university’s failure to provide him with the specific grounds for dismissal. ... [A]n Ohio state court allowed Gerber’s breach of contract claim to proceed, criticizing ONU’s “troubling . . . lack of any detailed determination” of how its allegations “affected his fitness as a faculty member.” That case is now headed to trial. [See America First Legal, Court Rejects Ohio Northern University’s Attempt to Dismiss AFL Lawsuit For Firing Tenured Professor Over DEI Objections, Case Proceeding to Trial (Sept. 17, 2024).]

But for defending his rights in state court, ONU sued Gerber in federal court on Jan. 20, claiming Gerber’s “perverted” lawsuit is apparently an “attempt to accomplish . . . personal vendettas” and “unleashing political retribution” against ONU — notwithstanding the state court holding Gerber’s claims warranted proceeding to a jury. ONU’s suit claims Gerber’s “true goal is to manufacture outrage, to influence political retribution, and to extract vengeance against” ONU. According to the lawsuit, Gerber’s attempt to hold the university to its own policies is an unlawful “abuse of process.” 

Disturbingly, the crux of ONU’s complaint rests on Gerber’s protected speech. The university faults Gerber for expressing accurate information about his ordeal in the Wall Street Journal and through a press release published by his attorneys at America First Legal, maligned by ONU as a “manufactured narrative” designed to “manufacture outrage.” Yet Gerber and America First Legal cite the university’s own words and policies to make his case, which a state court has allowed to proceed by rejecting ONU’s efforts to dismiss his claims.

The irony of ONU refusing to provide Gerber with the bare minimum of process before summarily terminating him, then launching a whole federal lawsuit instead to get him to stop fighting, is palpable.

Lima News Op-Ed:  Sales and Fails: Supermarkets and Universities Should Do Better, by Justin Marks (J.D. 2023, Ohio Northern).

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Wall Street Journal Op-Ed (Scott Gerber), DEI Brings Kafka To My Law School (May 10, 2023)
• Law.com, Tenured Law Professor Pulled From His Classroom Faces Termination. He Wants To Know Why? (May 25, 2023) 
• Law.com, Law School Seeks To Terminate Tenured Professor Accused of Bullying (Aug. 2, 2023)
• Law.com, A Deep Dive Into The Attempt To Fire Tenured Law Professor (Aug. 16, 2023)
• Daily Mail, Terminated Tenured Law Professor Sues University, Claims He Was Fired For Opposing DEI (Jan. 27, 2024)

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