Wild Justice Part 40

Then, just as winter was getting a firm grip on the land, the Attorney General released her report. Diana and her supporters were jubilant. The local paper printed and the TV and radio blared: "A strongly worded report from the A.G.'s office to President Pope maintains that professor was fired unjustly."

The A.G.'s thirty page comprehensive Letter of Determination (LOD), made it clear right at the beginning that the Belmont administration had refused to cooperate in the investigation. It emphasized that, "The University declined to make available people and information."

At the end of the LOD, it reiterated Belmont's non-cooperation.

The LOD went on to state that the University had held Termination for Cause Hearings. Sworn testimony was taken which had been completely transcribed by a court reporter.

This transcript and the court records relating to the illegal termination suit were used in this investigation since the Belmont administration refused to cooperate with the Attorney General.

It took the form of a letter to The Pope. In stark contrast to Henry's report, the LOD reviewed the history of the allegations against Diana, giving the charges and the response to these charges, equal weight and importance. This information was from the transcript which contained the sworn statements of all the university personnel involved in the hearing--those people who were prevented by the administration from talking to the A.G. investigator. It also reviewed the testimony of Diana and her witnesses. Reference was made to the testimony of the three doc.u.ment examiners--two presented by Belmont, the affidavit of the one submitted by Diana at the second hearing.

The point was made early on that the specific charge which resulted in termination was that Diana had written seven evaluations out of some one thousand submitted. Five of these were alleged to have injured two faculty members. It emphasized that testimony indicated that there were no performance problems with Diana. ". . .testimony from both sides established that she was highly regarded by her students, was very dependable and a hard worker."

It noted that while expert witnesses, the doc.u.ment examiners and the university attorney, were used to testify against Diana, she was not allowed an attorney to conduct a competent cross examination.

Stating that even though supportive doc.u.ments were not presented at the hearing, "the committee accepted testimonial evidence on the contents of them," it concluded that ". . .this represented the most serious deprivation of fundamental fairness that occurred.

Any concept of a fair administrative hearing, even one conducted without regard to strict rules of evidence, could not include the admission of testimonial evidence of the contents of doc.u.ments which were available only to the party presenting the evidence."

Commenting on the dissatisfaction of the committee with the testimony of the first doc.u.ment examiner, the LOD stated that, "Rather than reject the testimony and find Trenchant innocent, the committee continued the hearing and hired another doc.u.ment examiner.

This one disputed the findings of the first and required more standards.

The doc.u.ments provided by Belmont were exceedingly poor copies of file contents, much of which was over twenty years old.

Most of these so-called standards contained the handwriting of more than one person. At no time was any evidence presented that showed the standards sent by the administration to the handwriting a.n.a.lysts to be the writing of Diana."

Remarking on the fact that the committee was chaired by Henry Tarbuck who had already decided that Diana was guilty, the A. G. wrote, "The committee applied different rules of evidence to her and her witnesses, it badgered them and cautioned them against giving hearsay testimony.

"The committee rejected direct evidence by one student who testified under oath that she had written one of the 'suspect' doc.u.ments.

It ignored the testimony of Diana as well as that of her witnesses."

Then the LOD turned to the report from the hearing committee that Henry had auth.o.r.ed. One paragraph stated: "The effect of the suspect critiques on the two people who were said to have been hurt by them had not been a.s.sessed, but did affect the individuals involved." To this, the A.G. declared, "One questions the committee's findings as an accurate reflection of the evidence.

No underlying facts were stated by the committee that explain its findings that 'individuals were affected,' nor does the committee state how it could make that finding while stating that it had not examined the effect."

As precedents or comparison, the LOD reported that no penalties were imposed on two male Belmont faculty members, one who had altered promotion papers, the other convicted of child molestation. It quoted the testimony of Stacy Denton, the university psychologist. She had declared she knew of many instances of faculty misconduct more serious than what was alleged in this case. Those people had not been terminated.

Concluding that the university's stated explanation for terminating Diana was not worthy of credence, the report found there existed probable cause for s.e.x and age discrimination and disparate discipline by Belmont against Diana.

The LOD was sent to the regional EEOC office which accepted it and confirmed the acceptance with the A.G. by phone.

The newspapers and television reporters had a field day with it.

Diana and her supporters felt vindicated beyond measure.

Almost everyone believed that it was all over--that Diana had won.

Congratulatory letters and phone calls flowed to Diana and Belmont University administration was given a verbal drubbing.

Chapter 39

The university PR system was cranked up to its fullest.

Letters were sent out to various alumni groups around the country and speakers to these groups were alerted and advised.

The tras.h.i.+ng of Diana blossomed into an intellectual lynching of the lowest order. Much later on, as people came to understand that the university had not complied with the findings of the court and Attorney General, there was a general loss of respect for Belmont which contributed to a decrease in enrollment.

The official Belmont University response was delivered by the public relations spokesperson who dismissed the LOD as, "inconsequential. I don't know what all the fuss is about,"

he said. "When you cut through the fancy t.i.tle at the top it's just a lawyer's opinion." No one else at Belmont was available for comment.

The Pope did know what all the fuss was about and was stung by the words of condemnation contained in the LOD.

He immediately called his contact at the Was.h.i.+ngton DC office of the EEOC. He complained fiercely that the LOD never gave the university's side of the question. "No one here was interviewed by the investigator from the Attorney General's Office,"

he protested peevishly.

He got that right!

His contact got his protest an immediate hearing by the EEOC chairman, who directed the regional office to quash the Attorney General's LOD.

No one in the head office bothered to read the LOD and learn that the reason there were no interviews of university personnel because they refused to cooperate with the investigation.

Friends in high places, indeed.

In addition, The Pope called a meeting to discuss their court strategy. "Now," The Pope said forcefully, "It's time we did something to end the legal ha.s.sle. That d.a.m.ned judge!

And, this A.G. letter on top of it. We are getting too much bad publicity. The letters and phone calls are driving everyone crazy around here. It's gone on long enough--too long!" Sitting around the conference table in the west wing of his office with him was Murrain, Henry Tarbuck and Jimbo.

Murrain spoke confidently. "The court business is nearly finished.

I have already pet.i.tioned the judge for permission to start discovery.

Unless the plaintiff is sitting on a gold mine, that will finish off her bank account right there."

"How's that?" asked Jimbo.

"During discovery, we take depositions. Al Garret will have to depose a lot more witness than we do in order to even come close to presenting his case. Conservatively speaking, he's looking at nearly a thousand bucks a day that he must bill Trenchant.

"And that's not even the best part." Murrain caressed his face with his hand as if re-oiling the smile on its surface.

"I'll coach our people in evasive answers, which means that it will take days of deposition time for him to get the information that an unprepared witness would give in a hour.

"Good." The Pope was pleased.

Not so pleased was Al Garret and the plaintiff. Both attorneys had agreed some months ago that the process of discovery would not be commenced until the judge had given his final ruling on the motions and the trial date set. Murrain delivered his low blow without missing a beat. "Oh," he cooed when Al called him to complain, "I must have misunderstood. I thought you wanted to get started before the final ruling."

Al was outcla.s.sed and he knew it. Apologetically, he called the plaintiff and drew her the financial picture. An appeal to the judge for permission to delay discovery was ignored--Murrain had carefully picked his time.

It was one of the last orders the judge signed before departing on his vacation.

That's all she wrote, Diana acknowledged In debt and unemployed, she dropped her illegal-termination suit against Belmont University.

AFTERGLOW

Chapter 40

Deep within the bowels of the Belmont library building, the university archivist, Igor O'Toole, had been keeping an informal running tally of events relating to the SmurFF Affair.

He had gleaned the information from his friend, Diana, confirmed gossip, media sources, university doc.u.ments and private sources which he knew to be reliable and would not reveal. He had, over the past two years, posted it in a sc.r.a.pbook.

His interest had been whetted when the story first broke.

Everyone repeating it on campus was incredulous. . .termination for cause on account of seven SmurFFs? Really? It must be a joke.