Wild Justice Part 39

Even though the hearing committee at Belmont had made its report and recommendation to terminate, the actual termination letter had not yet been sent. From the time she was accused, Diana had found life at work to be difficult. As a plaintiff, in a lawsuit against Belmont, it was nearly impossible.

Nearly, that is, because her students never wavered in their efforts to encourage and help her. It was during this wait that factual information was obtained concerning a dean at Belmont who had falsified a faculty promotion sheet. The occurrence had been rumored, but now the players were known. Al Garret had talked to the princ.i.p.als of the event and obtained two affidavits attesting to the misconduct and subsequent lack of punishment awarded the dean who was still employed at the university.

The man had suffered no loss of rank or pay for his transgression.

These affidavits were added to the pile of papers already on file with the judge.

Early in June, the Opinion and Order of the judge arrived.

Al Garret's third charge had been thrown out by the judge who wrote that the law cited did not apply to Belmont University.

The other three charges were sustained.

On charge number four, relating to the open meeting law, the judge wrote in part: "To permit this hearing panel to operate outside the Open Meeting Law would be to enable the university to take round-about steps to avoid its public duty."

He continued by describing the hearing panel as resembling, ". . .the type of secret activities the Open Meeting Law seeks to prevent. . ." and suggested that if the panel had considered any area to be extremely sensitive, it could have gone into executive session. Even this he qualified--a.s.serting that it was subject to the plaintiff's right to a public hearing.

As to the public record law, charge number five, he ruled that the plaintiff should have access to the evaluations requested.

"The Court finds," he wrote, "that Belmont must comply with the Public Records Law."

Finally, on charge number six, relating to the fair employment law, the judge found the evidence submitted to be sufficient to indicate retaliatory, s.e.xual discrimination.

A few days later, with this Opinion and Order from the court in hand, John T. Pope, president of Belmont University, terminated the plaintiff, effective immediately.

The Pope's action was expected by everyone except Al Garret, Diana's attorney--he still thought he'd won the case.

Belmont had been thumbing its nose at the judicial system as long as anyone could remember.

Diana Trenchant packed up the teaching and research acc.u.mulations of nearly twenty-five years and left for home.

Neither the president nor any of the Vees could be reached for comment.

However, Bob Alastar, the PR for Belmont, called in the press.

"We have no comment," he a.s.serted. "It is the university's policy not to discuss personnel decisions with the press."

Now there was a new angle in the threatening phone calls to the plaintiff. The caller would start out in a friendly fas.h.i.+on.

In a conversational tone, he would advise Diana to, "go down to the courthouse and examine the court records for the past ten years.

Just check the directory for all the cases that Belmont has been involved in and read the outcome. The court clerk will help you."

Then the voice would become threatening. "You will see that no one has ever won a case against Belmont. It owns the courts and it owns the lawyers. You'll lose all your money and you'll be hurt in other ways. It can and will make appeal after appeal.

It can and will tie this case up for years. Give it up before you get hurt."

Chapter 38

The investigation by the Attorney General continued. When she tried to interview potential witnesses at Belmont, she was prevented by the administration. "Do not even talk with her," was the gag order that went out from the central administration of Belmont to every chair and director. These lesser administrators were told to alert their departments or units and advise all faculty, staff and students not to cooperate in her investigation.

For a while, the investigation lagged. It was hoped that as tempers cooled and reason rea.s.serted itself, the university would be more receptive to the questions posed by the A.G. It was, after all, to their benefit to answer the questions. It was an opportunity to get their position known because the report, when completed, would be sent to the EEOC.

It would have considerable influence on research grants applied for by Belmont faculty.

The cooling off period solved nothing. Belmont administration was adamant.

They had done the right thing. There was nothing to investigate.

The incident had ended. The Pope had spoken.

Actually, The Pope was doing more than speaking--he was engaged in composing excuses and explanations. Supporters of Diana had sent the Judge's Order, or excerpts from it, to state legislators, faculty, staff, students, alumni, trustees and any other person that had expressed interest in the lawsuit. This had resulted in hundreds of letters and phone calls to The Pope and members of his administration as well as to the Board of Trustees.

"What is going on?" One of the first callers demanded, having insisted, and gotten The Pope on the line.

"You fired a good teacher after a judge ruled that she had not received a fair hearing?"

"Our hearing panel gave her a fair hearing, sir.

The newspapers have just blown this up to sell papers,"

The Pope replied, holding back his anger with difficulty and making his voice sound terribly knowledgeable.

"The judge said you didn't. I saw his order. Was the hearing open? Did you give her all the doc.u.ments she requested, or not?" The caller was insistent.

"Well, sir, it's not that simple. Our policy is to protect the employee so we always have closed hearings. There was no need to produce the doc.u.ments in question. The hearing panel was confident that they were not needed."

"I don't care about how your hearing panel or how your policy goes.

I'm asking about an excellent teacher who has served our university for nearly a quarter of a century. If she did what you have accused her of . . . good G.o.d, man! Five out of thousands--what difference could that make?

You've made yourself look silly."

The Pope took no more calls after that except from the trustees.

He could not escape their critical views but with the help of his handpicked chairman of the board, he managed to placate most of them.

One secretary was placed full-time answering letters and the Vees were called on to answer the phone calls and talk to any one who came to the offices. Consumption of antacid increased astronomically in "Vice Alley"--lair of the Vees.

PR man, Alastar and all the Vees were carefully coached to suggest to the callers that Diana Trenchant had really done something unspeakable and that the charge that was aired was "only the tip of the iceberg." They also were told to hint concerning her motives. She was "thought to have so desired the chairmans.h.i.+p of the department. . ." or "she was delusional in her a.s.sertion that she had written any course material, etc. . ." or "she was not really the type of woman that normal women, those with husbands or boyfriends, wanted to a.s.sociate with. . ." or. . .

Meanwhile, back at the court, legal papers piled up anew.

Diana felt helpless, drawn along in a maelstrom of chaos.

A veritable barrage of verbiage flew to the court, like guided missiles, from both attorneys. They were couched in legal parlance and cus.h.i.+oned on expensive, patterned vellum. For every submission, there was a filing fee, hours of research and multiple law-firm billings.

For each batch of doc.u.ments sent to the court, copies were made to send to the opposing attorney, the file and sometimes, even the plaintiff.

Occasionally, a hearing on one or another of the various motions was called. When this happened, the lawyers and the plaintiff were joined by the judge, his clerk and the court stenographer.

Each attorney blew smoke--substantial as ghost p.o.o.p.

The judge sat in the air high above the arena and pondered.

At times, he would interrupt and admonish. Periodically he would ask a question and these were the interesting moments as each attorney had a different answer.

The lawyer for the defense only knew what he had been told by Henry Tarbuck and Henry only knew what he had been told by Lyle.

Diana's attorney knew only what she had told him and it was obvious there was a lot that he hadn't remembered. How little the truth counted in these proceedings, Diana thought as she listened to the screw up.

Neither of these men, who are being questioned and are the only ones allowed to speak, were at Belmont when these events were occurring.

Most of the time they are way out in left field with their answers.

And here I sit, mute because the system demands it, unable to clear up the confusion. All this money spent and the judge still doesn't understand what the SmurFFs are. He asked for clarification and got gibberish.

There's the gavel. One more useless hearing is over with.