As Tom Monaghan and his Ave Maria generals (including Collier Co. CEO Paul Marinielli) prepare to be deposed, a few things are worth remembering:

In a July 20 2007 interview on Fox 2 News (Detroit), AMSL Dean Bernard Dobranski said that Tom Monaghan was informed of what transpired when the Law School offered computer help to a local priest investigated for child pornography (see BoysCherries series; hear audio). According to Fox, Monaghan's Law School chose not to share the findings of its internal "investigation" with police "claiming privacy and no fresh information".

That said, Mr. Monaghan should be considered by everyone to be a fully informed participant in the BoysCherries incident. We give him no wiggle room for claiming lack of understanding of all that transpired. We trust that he was fully aware of the fact that at least one of his Ave Maria College employees was, according to police reports, in direct contact with the priest's pornographic hard drive. In the upcoming trial's fact finding, if anything comes out showing inconsistency, falsehood, half-truths, or more extensive involvement of previously named or unnamed individuals, we will hold Mr. Monaghan responsible for (a) not offering a complete explanation of the events and (b) denying the police their right to investigate matters for themselves. It will be deeply problematic for Monaghan if there is any whiff that what transpired was more than what was publicly disclosed; given the seriousness of the matter, a cloud of distrust will hover over Monaghan in all things Ave Maria, including his Town.

An explanation remains open as to how the priest and his parish supporter - both of whom lacked computer technical skill - garnered the instructions and skill to remove the pornographic drive and to install/format the brand new hard drive.

Before the trial starts, it is also worth considering Dean Dobranski's boundless tolerance for the outrageous public remarks made week after week by his "buddy" AMSL Chaplain Fr. Michael Orsi (1,2,3,4)... and compare that to Dobranski's harsh and abrupt termination of tenured founding professor Steve Safranek based, supposedly, on thin and misleading reasons. Remember, it was Orsi who invited the BoysCherries scandal upon the Law School... and it was Orsi who, according to reports, never even bothered to tell the Dean about the incident until after Dobranski was informed by another source.

Dobranski's seemingly insurmountable task is to put lipstick on the obviously ugly mug of arbitrary employee treatment, as typified by where Orsi and Safranek are today. There isn't enough makeup at a Marco Island community meeting to coverup that boss hog.

Tags: lawsuit, boyscherries, accountability

A tip-of-the-hat goes to JW Trainer for pointing-out this gem to AveWatch.

Tom Monaghan's club for rich Catholic businessmen, Legatus, is having a "Winter Summit" at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples. The advertised "Highlights" include:

"Latin Mass, at the new Ave Maria Oratory"

The date stamped on the flier announcing the Summit is "9/27/07".

So, once again, Tom Monaghan pushes the hand of the Bishop of Venice to approve AMU's oratory by announcing a Mass in a yet unapproved structure. This Mass was announced as a "Highlight" to people paying $1,500 each to attend the conference.

Since Pat Boone is the headlining entertainment for the Summit, let's see if Mr. Monaghan invites him to sing at Mass.

Tags: liturgy, accountability

Late last week, Ave Maria University broke ground to build a new dormatory. According to the Naples Daily News:

"Upon completion, the school will provide housing for approximately 600 undergraduates, a university release said."

But wait. I thought that AMU already had "over 600 students" on campus? Several days ago, AveWatch showed you excerpts from fundraising letters sent to donors this past fall, with gems like:

AMU priest Fr. Matthew Lamb (bold added) -
"With a record of over 600 students this year on our permanent campus in the town of Ave Maria, we are on the right track."

So, if AMU already has "over 600" that are "on" campus and "in the town", where are they housing them? How can their new housing target for next year be "approximately 600"?

Given AMU's track record for losing students during the year, their faltering accreditation, and their shaddy dealings, one wonders if the new dorm is needed for actual enrollment figures or if they simply want to show turned dirt for their upcoming initial SACS accreditation evaluation.

AMU Project Director Don Schotenboer recently assumed a vice president post at a local consulting group.

Tags: accountability

Consider the following excerpts. Bold added for emphasis -

Fundraising letter from AMU VP Carole Carpenter, Sept. 14, 2007:
"Now, on August 27 of 2007, we have moved into this wonderful new university which is located in Ave Maria Florida. With the addition of 187 new students, enrollment is now at a record 601 students who are witnesses to a miracle of the faith of many."

Fundraising letter from AMU lawyer-President Nicholas Healy, Sept. 14, 2007:
"We welcomed a record 601 students at our Opening ceremony on August 27!"

Fundraising letter from AMU priest Fr. Matthew Lamb, Oct. 15, 2007:
"With a record of over 600 students this year on our permanent campus in the town of Ave Maria, we are on the right track."

Compare the aforementioned to the following excerpt from yesterday's Naples Daily News -
"According to August student enrollment statistics, there are 447 degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate students on campus and 147 students enrolled in the school’s distance learning master’s program."

The problem:

1) The NDN numbers total 594, not 601. How much bolder it is to say "over 600", rather than even "600", let alone "almost 600".

2) NDN says that there are 447 "students on campus". Fr. Lamb told donors that there are over 600 students "on our permanent campus" and "in the town of Ave Maria". He appears to be counting distance learning students in AMU's Institute for Pastoral Theology as "on" campus and "in" the town. The Institute runs out of Kansas City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and St. Louis, among other cities. Healy told donors that 601 students were welcomed "at our Opening ceremony", which was also in August, the same month that the NDN cites its statistics. Is Healy suggesting that the distance learning students flew to south Florida to be "at our Opening ceremony"?

Lamb's letter may be particularly problematic. The context of his note to donors creates the appearance that the "over 600" are traditional young full-time residential degree-seeking students. Excepts from Lamb's fundraising letter (bold added):

"We have to teach the teachers of the next generation in the seminaries, colleges, and universities. If we don't, we will lose the next generation of Catholics to the dissenting falsehoods currently masquerading as Catholic scholarship in higher education."

"But we need to increase this number [the over 600]... who will be the next generation of parents, leaders, and teachers."

To AveWatch, this all appears to be a lawyerly attempt to make the number of traditional on-campus students to appear 34% greater than actual to propsective donors.

Even after being forced to pay $259,000 to the federal Department of Education for being caught in a financial aid sleight of hand that inflated, and benefited, Ave Maria's numbers, AMU administrators persist in their tactics. Other sleight of hand tactics were successful, such as AMU's early deceptive use of the .edu domain name in apparent violation of Department of Commerce rules.

If this recent use of the phrase "over 600" is an attempt to inflate appearances for donors, it would not be the first time that Monaghan has employed such a technique. Ave Maria used a scheme earlier this year to inflate the number of people who appeared to be interested in Monaghan's for-profit Ave Maria Town real estate development (see the AveWatch report "Let's Pad the Numbers"). Monaghan, by his own admission, used deceptive inflation when Ave Maria College started in Michigan:

Excerpt from Tom Monaghan's 2003 address to NAPCIS:
"... I don't know how many full-time students we had the first year ... I think it was 10 or 12 [students], and that's questionable because we were taking everybody and anybody off the street and almost had to pay 'em to come. But, we got started! That's the point - we got started. And we had some of our employees over at Domino Farms in the Foundation take classes in our cafeteria just so we could get our numbers up. They came over and gave a class in theology and philosophy once a week. I took one of the classes in philosophy just to help get the numbers up so we could say that we have 25 or so students that first year."

For as much as Ave Maria fundraising letters complain about the "authenticity" of other Catholic universities, it would be difficult to imagine Notre Dame or Georgetown having so little integtrity on such a straight-forward issue as enrollment.

Tags: accountability

UPDATE 11/17/2007 - A memo issued by AMSL Dean Bernard Dobranski confirms that their school finished last in bar exam results. He blames the scores on the students' work ethic rather than the turmoil generated by his administration.

---

As the 2007 Michigan bar examination scores roll in, yet-unconfirmed reports state that Ave Maria School of Law slipped from top in the state to bottom [see story at Fumare]. Who can argue that the decision to close the Michigan campus and move to Tom Monaghan's Florida mega-development has not objectively destabilized a once-successful institution?

Given the rash of firings, Board resignations, massive drop in alumni confidence [1,2], protest by legal colleagues, and intimidation, it is no surprise that the ABA is investigating AMSL's declining environment under Dean Bernard Dobranski. Tom Monaghan's self-interested management, focused on the good of his for-profit Florida real estate development and his Ave Maria Foundation ministry, continues to breed dysfunction for the students, faculty, and alumni of Ave Maria School of Law.

Tags: accountability

The problems that put Oral Roberts University into recent headlines pale in comparison to Tom Monaghan's manipulation of Ave Maria enterprises for his personal, business, and banking interests. Monaghan's management is far more repugnant given its scale, financial scope, coercive nature, and depth of self-servitude.

A central charge against Robert Roberts, President of ORU, is misuse of university funds for personal interests. "University funds" are donations made to a non-profit institution by supporters; except for some guidelines, donors relinquish control of their money to a university. It becomes a university asset.

That is not how Tom Monaghan "gives". In fact, he does not "give" because he fails to relinquish even the smallest bit of control. Tax-exempt money from Monaghan's Ave Maria Foundation is circulated back into his direct control as Chairman/Chancellor at Ave Maria University (AMU) and Ave Maria School of Law (AMSL). He even shares the same CFO between the Foundation, AMU, AMSL, his Florida bank, and his multiple for-profit Florida businesses (via Nua Baile). It would be difficult to imagine a more egregious example of personal interest driving the misuse of a non-profit than for a person to shut-down a highly successful school under his chairmanship in one state (AMSL in Michigan) and uproot it to his for-profit real estate development in another state (south Florida's Ave Maria Town) - a move that directly benefits his other Florida businesses and his chairmanship in a pre-existing non-proft (Florida's AMU) - all while causing chaos for the once-successful institution and its alumni (Michigan's AMSL). AMSL's shutting-down in Michigan and starting-up in Florida may means millions for Monaghan, from condo sales, to land appreciation, to more utility hookups (Monaghan even has a stake in Ave Maria Utilities in Ave Maria Town). It makes the $800 bathtub that ORU put into Richard Robert's house look like peanuts.

But given the recent bubble burst in Florida real estate, Monaghan's land speculation might not make much in the end. The success of AMSL's move from Michigan to Florida is predicated on cash from home sales, not on the Law School's internal success. Chaining the school's future to unrelated businesses, a single decision maker, and unrestrained market forces is the game that this billionaire is playing. The volatility for AMSL is compounded because Monaghan has yet to show any hard guaranteed financial commitment for the school when it gets to Florida. Institutions of higher education should not be the toys of an uber-wealthy businessman with a high school diploma.

Some have argued that Monaghan should be allowed to "spend his money as he pleases". To do so is to disregard restrictions on non-profit and for-profit governance, and the fiduciary obligation to avoid conflicting interests. Tom Monaghan's giving back to himself (i.e. from AMF to AMSL), and his use of non-profits to directly benefit his for-profits, make him a rogue philanthropist of the highest order. He demonstrates nicely why a model founded in self-interest breeds abuse, unaccountability, dysfunction, and failure.

Commonalities Between Monaghan/Roberts:
+ At ORU, Richard Roberts is President; the school's founder, Oral Roberts, serves as Chancellor. Richard Roberts is also Chairman and CEO of Oral Roberts Ministries. Tom Monaghan is Chairman of the Ave Maria Foundation (AMF), an organization that is also run like a one-person "ministry". Monaghan also serves as founder/Chancellor of his Ave Maria University, and as founder/Chairman of Ave Maria School of Law. The Ave Maria presidents are lawyers under Monaghan's direct control; these president-lawyers assume an attorney-client relationship with the Chairman of the supporting "ministry" (Monaghan-AMF).

+ The recent suits against Roberts and Monaghan were each filed by 3 fired professors claiming whistleblower retaliation and breach of contract.

+ The Roberts and Monaghan suits each claimed that their respective institution's nonprofit status was violated. Roberts' case involves a political campaign while Monaghan's involves abusing a Michigan non-profit (i.e. Ave Maria School of Law) to benefit Monaghan's other Florida non-profits (i.e. Ave Maria University), for-profits (i.e. Nua Baile and Ave Maria Development), and personal interests (i.e. Monaghan's private land holdings). See also "Non-profit Watchdog Aims At Ave").

+ The Roberts suit involves accusations of inappropriate sexually-related activity on university grounds, using university resources. The Monaghan suit involves worse accusations: "In 2006, Plaintiff Safranek discovered even more disturbing activity. Based on discussions with law school employees and reports prepared by the Michigan State Police, he concluded that certain staff at Defendant Ave Maria School of Law used their positions and law school resources to obstruct a criminal investigation into a priest’s alleged involvement in sex offenses, including possession of child pornography. At the time of this involvement of law school staff and resources in assisting the accused priest, the matter had been under investigation by the Livingston County Prosecutor’s Office, the Michigan State Police, and/or the Michigan Attorney General’s Office. Defendant Dobranski became aware of the issue, but refused to alert any law enforcement agencies of the role Defendant Ave Maria School of Law had played in possibly obstructing an ongoing criminal investigation. Plaintiff Safranek filed a report with various law enforcement agencies regarding his knowledge of the efforts to obstruct the criminal investigation into the priest’s alleged involvement in sex offenses. The actions of Plaintiffs have led to ever-increasing retaliation, including disgusting and false smears upon Plaintiff Safranek’s character." See AveWatch's BoysCherries story - background, details, series

+ Both Roberts and Monaghan have an odd obsession with money and a personal Divine calling for their academic enterprises. In 1987, Oral Roberts claimed that God would kill him if he didn't raise $8 million for ORU. The recent complaint filed against Monaghan alleges that a justification for the uprooting of Michigan's Ave Maria School of Law to Monaghan's south Florida Ave Maria Town is that "the Virgin Mary, whom Catholics revere as the Mother of God, personally directed him to develop Ave Maria Town and Ave Maria University in Southwest Florida." See also "Give For the Good of Your Soul" and "Ave Maria Cult of Personality".

+ Both Roberts and Monaghan foster charismatic Christian experiences (public healings through channeling; being "slain in the spirit"; speaking in tongues; happy clappy music at liturgy/worship).

+ Despite the small size of their respective universities, both Roberts and Monaghan conduct school business using a private jet.

+ Both Roberts and Monaghan appear to lack financial accountability. The Roberts suit cites many accusations of university misappropriation for personal interest - i.e. "The Roberts home has been remodeled 11 times in the last 14 years. Each time, Mrs. Roberts demands more changes." Similarly, the former CFO of AMU said, under oath, "Mrs. Healy [wife of AMU President Nick Healy] had spent $90,000 using the College’s credit card in order to furnish the [President's] house without prior authorization or knowledge by me." This same CFO also brought to light a questionable payment of $240,000 made to AMU's then-Provost Fr. Joseph Fessio: "When I inquired as to why there was no liability on the financial statements for that, I was told [by Ave administrators] that the liability was, quote, off balance sheet." What else does Monaghan keep "off balance sheet"? More on the former CFO's testimony can be found here; there are stunning accusations of FERPA violations and preferential treatment given to a banker-friend to manage Ave Maria student loans. Many unconfirmed reports of wasteful spending have been sent to AveWatch, including multiple reports from former AMU employees that $30,000 was spent on a dog house for AMU's bulldog mascot.

+ Within their respective entrepreneurial fiefdoms, both Roberts and Monaghan appear to have excessive control over their institution's Board. In the suit, Roberts is quoted as follows concerning ORU's Board: "I have the deck stacked - I am elected to three year terms and if a Regent appears to give me trouble, I remove him. I stack the deck..." AveWatch readers will recall AMSL cofounder and former Board member Charles Rice's controversial removal (1,2,3), as well as Monaghan's other Board manipulations (1,2,3,4), including his use of a small "Executive Team" at the Ave Maria Foundation to make decisions for one school based on factors involving another school.

+ Monaghan and Roberts share tastes in architecture. ORU has its futuristic Prayer Tower while Monaghan has his giant Oratory shaped like a salmon steak. Neither structure is formally recognized as a Catholic Church. Monaghan wants to build the world's largest crucifix on his campus while Roberts has the largest (60-foot-tall) praying hands statue on his campus. The estimated value of ORU's buildings is over $250 million, the same amount that Monaghan claims to be investing into AMU.

Differences Between Monaghan/Roberts:
+ The ORU Board is not chaired by Roberts (Oral or Richard). In fact, the ORU Board Chairman is actively investigating matters using independent third parties - lawyers and accountants - to review and audit the allegations. President Richard Roberts was put on a leave of absence, with his duties given to a Board member. The ORU Chairman is also communicating directly to constituents and the local community, recognizing that "our precious students, faculty, and staff have all suffered". In contrast, Ave Maria Foundation, Law School, University, etc. are all Chaired by Monaghan. His Boards have ignored multiple faculty and alumni votes of no-confidence against the AMSL President. In fact, Ave Maria administrators have initiated a contemptuous campaign of disengagement and intimidation (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) against constituents.

+ ORU is showing transparency by releasing statements from all involved (including the allegations) and by hiring independent third party investigators. ORU's governing board has become "hands-on". Ave Maria, on the other hand, ignores calls for independent outside investigations, releases few details to the public, and lets Monaghan and his lawyer-president run unchecked. This includes the crushing of students and alumni who publicly ask for answers and state opposition to Monaghan's governance and treatment of employee. Requests from a former AMSL Board member to secure new independent investigators for the BoysCherries scandal were denied.

+ The ORU "Golden Eagle" mascot is related to the university's location/wildlife on the Oklahoma prairie. It makes sense. In contrast, AMU's mascot relates to, and makes sense to, just one person - Tom Monaghan. The Ave Maria Gyrenes (short for GI Marines) reflect Monaghan's three years of military service immediately after high school, 50 years ago (1956-1959). Of that service, Monaghan said: "When I was in the Marine Corps, I was aboard a ship in the Pacific doing something I've always done a lot of: day-dreaming. I was thinking about my future, the lifestyle I was going to have, all the cars and the beautiful home and the yachts and the airplanes. I wasn't sure it was going to happen, but it wasn't any fun doing this daydreaming if it wasn't possible. I saved half the money I made in the Marine Corps, but it went to a con artist with an oil-drilling scheme." (Fortune Small Business, September 2003)

+ It is only a matter of time until Monaghan, like Roberts before him, goes on the Larry King show to "set the record straight" (Richard Roberts interview here and here).

A former insider in the Roberts ministry recently said "What others may call extravagance, he (Richard Roberts) may not see as extravagant." (CNN, Oct. 10, 2007). How much more distorted is the perspective of a billionaire and his ministry?

Benjamin Franklin wrote "Sell not Virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power." When will conservative Catholics stop giving their virtues as cheap barter to access Tom Monaghan's wealth? When will students and employees stop giving their liberties as cheap barter to access his idiosyncratic self-interested power? Whatever degree of disconnected megalomania and kookiness that conservative Catholic supporters of Tom Monaghan might see in Richard or Oral Roberts, they fail to see in their own man Monaghan - another entrepreneur of religion, but with significantly more money, more control, and less charisma.

Tags: accountability, conflict-of-interest, environment

It is inconceivable that any reputable law school, medical school, or university would do what Ave Maria School of Law has just done: single-out a student and distribute criticism of that student to the entire institution, including fellow students. The student is none other than the Chairman of the institution's Honor Board.

The full text of the student's letter and the administrator's letter are here. Analysis of the Deans' letter is here.

Think of it. Would five Deans at Notre Dame or Harvard Law Schools find the respectful-but-critical comments of a single student so intimidating as to issue a letter to all faculty and students about said student? The AMSL administrators' action only underscores the student's point - that intimidation is used in Ave Maria's governance. The Deans contend: ".. while the author expresses a desire to "bring peace to our school," it is difficult to understand how this goal is advanced by his provocative statements, which are self-evidently contentious and are likely to be divisive." Of course these Deans find it "difficult to understand", just as they also cannot understand why the American Bar Association has an ongoing investigation, specifically, into Ave Maria's unhealthy environment. Heaven forbid that a law student say something that might be "divisive". And even if a student's statement is divisive, so what? Are these Monaghan administrators so insecure that a gang of them must address the student in public, in front of peers? Students at a law school or university cannot be critical of the education that they're paying for? Such petty public action by a group of administrators, against a respected student, is difficult to fathom in a real law school.

Since then, the Student Bar Association's Vice President resigned, and AMSL alumni have issued strong statements to the administrators involved.

[hat-tip to Fumare]

Tags: accountability, employee-treatment, environment

[Updated - see below]

Diocese/Bishop of Venice,

The following was received today from Ave Maria University and corroborated by another source. Please take note. [emphasis added]

Forthcoming are the results of a Student Government initiated, campus wide survey. The [AMU] Office of Student Life isn't too happy that it was conducted. Naturally, the results show a widespread sentiment among the students much in accord with the Church's Instruction on Music in the Liturgy 'Musicam Sacram' (1967), Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy 'Sacrosanctam Concilium' (1963), and Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio 'Summorum Pontificum' (2007). To miss the words regarding chant and the Latin language is to be blind, and failing to infer serious reservations about non-liturgical music, viz. 'praise and worship,' is to be daft. For the most part, the students at Ave Maria University have eyes and can think.

For background, the following liturgical issues are at the forefront of liturgical disagreement here:

Versus Dominum: priests forced by administration to face the people at all Masses save the first of each day (7:50am).

Latin and Gregorian chant (We have two ready and well-trained scholas cantorum): Strictly prohibited at 18 out of 21 Masses per week ('pride of place'?).

Altar rails: removed at the personal mandate of Healy. Document drafted and signed by Healy and Fr. Garrity explaining that kneeling is not to be encouraged at AMU

Missal of Blessed Pope John XXIII: No preparations made for celebration. Fraternity of Saint Peter priest denied the opportunity either to regularly celebrate at AMU or to train AMU priests. He offered, on generous terms, to accommodate us in both regards.

It's not a question of being radically anti-tradition. The rest of the country can take care of that. It's a problem of a small group (i.e. Healy) misappropriating liturgical authority to himself in order to deny the right of a larger group of universally orthodox Catholics (the priests, students, faculty and staff) the right to correct worship and discipline of the sacraments in line with the heart of the Church. This right is something our priests are more than willing to facilitate.

This is not a petty issue. Large problems exist like homosexuality in the priesthood, heresy, dissent, bad catechesis, etc., but can one confidently determine the causal relationship here, if there is one? Cardinal Ratzinger seemed to think so, as he largely attributed the Church's problems to the disintegration of the Liturgy in his 'The Spirit of the Liturgy.'

We'll see what happens at Ave Maria. We've had so many actual petitions along these lines. If the 'radical, right-wing, ultra conservative' higher-ups at AMU can't recognize the Church's subtler heartbeat, who outside of our comfortable Catholic commune can?

Previous AW stories concerning Monaghan & Healy's narrow and problematic notions of Catholicism:
+ Bishop: "AMU not a Catholic University"
+ Note of Caution to Diocese of Venice
+ AMU's Ecclesiastical Authority
+ Donate "For The Good of Your Soul"
+ Traditional Catholics Slam Healy

UPDATE, 10/11/2007 - survey results were released; click "More..." belowMore...

Tags: accountability, environment, liturgy

Imagine a situation where the private security personnel at your place of employment are also the first line of security where you live... and that this security force answers to your boss whether on patrol near your office or home. Your home, by the way, was built by and bought from your boss - the same man who also oversees your kid's school and the bank where you have your savings and loans. Such are the feudal dreams-turned-reality in Tom Monaghan's entrepreneurial fiefdom.

Rather than outsource security services to an independent third party, Tom Monaghan has his in-house security business patrol Domino Farms and all things Ave Maria in Michigan. "Alpha Omega Security, LLC" is located at Domino's Farms and was formed in 2000. AveWatch recently reported on the use of security to monitor Ave Maria School of Law co-founder and tenured professor Stephen Safranek. The photo above shows one of the two Monaghan security officers (right) who performed surveillance on Safranek (left) while he worked in his AMSL campus office.

In Florida, T.R. Minick is Ave Maria University's Director of Physical Plant and Security. Security employees under him report to AveWatch that Minick has often referred to Tom Monaghan as "Our King". Because Collier County can't seem to find the cash to put a police presence in Monaghan's Ave Maria Town mega-development, Minick's security team is reportedly providing some level of security to parts of the Town as well -

Naples Daily News, August 23, 2007, excerpt (full text):

For now, Ave Maria residents and students will likely become most familiar with the university’s security services, and that’s not only because they’ll be patrolling the campus, town center and K-12 school. The 11-member security team, which will add two or three more staff members after school starts Monday, is made up entirely of Ave Maria University students.
Minick, a former police captain and sheriff in Michigan, has relied on students for various private security efforts for more than 20 years. He has been involved with AMU founder Tom Monaghan since Monaghan owned the Detroit Tigers baseball team in the 1980s.

AveWatch's "Boys Cherries" story documents how Ave Maria School of Law administrators did not immediately contact the police after multiple Ave Maria employees offered direct help to a non-employee investigated by state authorities for child pornography [background, details, series]. This non-employee was a priest in regular contact with minors. Ave Maria administrators protected their employees from investigation by the police, even after a former AMSL Board member called for an independent investigation. After seeing such potential disregard for the security of others outside Ave, and the excessive self-centered regard for breach of security from a devoted internal employee and co-founder like Safranek, who can trust Tom Monaghan's idiosyncratic and self-serving notions of "security"? Whose interests are central in the administration of security by "Our King"? What will Minick and his personnel do in a situation where a compromise in security serves the interests or directives of "Their King"?

Tags: accountability

It would be a daunting task to list the many and varied ways in which Tom Monaghan has, over the years, carefully populated his Ave Maria Boards with people beholden to him. Many conflicts of interest exist, but the task is made more difficult by high Board turnover, lack of transparency (i.e. access to Board meeting minutes), old web-based data, shifting corporate structure, and the frequent use of shell organizations that conceal relationships (i.e. "Ave Maria University", a Michigan corporation vs. "Ave Maria University, Inc" in Florida; "Nua Baile", the Michigan company that hides Monaghan ownership in Florida's "Ave Maria Development" partnership). As far back as 2000, Monaghan was warned by multiple people to stop surrounding himself with conflicted relationships. For example, consider the paid consultant report of Fr. James T. Burtchaell, an expert on Catholic higher education, given to Ave Maria senior staff (excerpts):

+ "The board of trustees has functioned under several handicaps. The most immediate one is a pervasive conflict of interest. The majority of its members are already so beholden to Mr. Monaghan through employment, benefaction, family, or business that they could not be reasonably expected or trusted to offer disinterested and independent advice and judgement on matters... Still further, it needs the presence of other independent and experienced executives and philanthropists who are prepared to join Mr. Monaghan as peers, not clients.."
+ "The chairman, Mr. Monaghan... has followed a well-practiced tradition of close, entrepreneurial management which obliterates the requisite separation between independent governance and professional administration. Besides the obvious impropriety in the governance of an institution of higher learning, this corporation sole will deny Ave Maria any access to further funding sources."

Is there a relationship between being a member of Tom Monaghan's Board and having accepted a benefit from Monaghan? Consider this very incomplete list based on Ave Maria Foundation (AMF) IRS 990s up to 2005:

+ Leonard Leo (photo left; AMSL Board), Executive Vice President, Federalist Society & Chair of "Catholic Outreach" at the Republican National Committee; AMF Contribution to Federalist Society = $100,000

+ Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York (AMSL Board) & Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Director of Office for Spiritual Development, Archdiocese of New York (AMU Board); AMF Contribution to "Cardinal's Office" Archdiocese of New York = $125,000

+ Anthony C. Rea (AMU Board), Committee Chairman, Papal Foundation; AMF Contribution to Papal Foundation = $89,400

+ Adam Cardinal Maida (AMSL Board), Archbishop of Detroit & President of Pope John Paul II Cultural Center; AMF Contribution to John Paul II Cultural Center = $1,023,100

+ Fr. Michael Scanlon (AMSL Board), former President, Franciscan University of Steubenville; AMF Contribution to Franciscan University of Steubenville = $198,000

+ Ralph Martin (AMC Board), President, Renewal Ministries; AMF Contribution to Renewal Ministries = $14,000; [Update - An AW reader astutely noted that Martin did co-author "The Martin Report", which was critical of certain AMC administrative practices. Martin left the AMC Board shortly after that time.]

Other relationships to consider:
+ Steve Ray (photo left; AMC Board & AMU Board), Owner, Distinctive Maintenance (a building services/housekeeping company); Monaghan has served as a significant source of business/referrals for years, including Ave Maria contracts; website features testimony of Ave Maria School of Law stating "I have to compliment the floor crew for the outstanding job they did yesterday."; offers free $25 Domino's Pizza gift cards for projects exceeding $500; has also significantly benefited from book/cd/dvd sales through the Fessio/IgnatiusPress tie into Monaghan; Ray also runs "Defenders of the Faith" and uses Monaghan to promote his CDs (i.e. website post June 28, 2005 concerning one of Ray's CDs for sale: "Tom Monaghan said that it was one of the best talks he had ever heard"; Monaghan is featured on Ray's "Endorsements for Steve" page).

+ NAPCIS, National Association of Private Catholic and Independent Schools; AMF Contribution to NAPCIS = $174,931; Ave Maria has hosted the NAPCIS meetings for years, featuring Monaghan as speaker; Dan Guernsey of AMF was appointed to the NAPCIS Board; NAPCIS is now moving it headquarters from California to Monaghan's Ave Maria Florida development; the Ave Maria Grammar and Preparatory School run by Guernsey and funded by Monaghan is now applying to NAPCIS for accreditation

+ Deal Hudson (photo left), Director of The Morley Institute for Church & Culture, former publisher/editor of CRISIS Magazine, and former advisor to Republican National Committee on things Catholic; photo shows Monaghan (far left) receiving CRISIS Magazine award from Hudson (far right) in September 2000; in 2000 and 2001, Hudson's Morley Publishing Group accepted $15,000 from AMF; in 2003, while serving as Chairman of AALE (Ave Maria College and University's lone accrediting agency), Hudson entered into questionable dealings on accreditation with Monaghan's AMU lawyer-president Nick Healy; Hudson suggested that Ave Maria's Monaghan, Healy, and Fessio may be saints for canonization.

+ Fr. William Thomas, former pastor, Holy Spirit Catholic Church (Hamburg, MI); AMF Contribution to Holy Spirit Catholic Church in 2000 = $10,000; in 2001, AMF and Thomas attempted to convince parishioners to start a school designed and run by AMF; Thomas received computer-related help at the invitation of Ave Maria School of Law and Ave Maria College when Thomas was investigated for Internets-based child pornography; that help was not reported to police investigators (background here, series here)

+ Cardinal Newman Society; AMF Contribution to Cardinal Newman Society for the Preservation of Catholic Higher Education = $10,000; in an October 1, 2007 press release, AMU announced that it was chosen by the Society "as one of the best Catholic schools in America for undergraduate students" and stated that AMU students would be shown on the front cover photo of the Society's forthcoming guide to Catholic colleges; keep in mind that AMU just moved to untested unfinished facilities, is not fully unaccredited, is on shakey-ground to continue receiving federal funds, is on its 3rd application for regional accreditation, has suffered high faculty turnover and student transfers, and has been said to have a "climate of fear" by students and parents; the Society gave this honor to AMU despite its Provost stating less than one year ago that "problems" were near "crisis" level, and despite the recent statement by the Bishop of Venice that Ave Maria is not even a "Catholic university"!

Tags: conflict-of-interest, accountability

[Update below]
Earlier today, the official representation for Ave Maria School of Law's alumni (The AMSL Alumni Association Board of Directors) voted to renew its April 2006 call for the resignation of Dean Bernard Dobranski. The Board also voted to add a call for AMSL Chairman Tom Monaghan's resignation.

Excerpt:
"We also call on the Board of Governors to immediately remove their Chairman, as we affirmatively express our “No Confidence” in him as well. As Chairman of the Board of Governors, we believe Mr. Thomas Monaghan has failed to exercise his fiduciary duty to Ave Maria School of Law and has instead encouraged use of the Law School to spur further development in and the growth of Ave Maria, Florida. The development of this town is intimately and directly entangled with the well-being of other entities in which Mr. Monaghan has a financial interest. Despite these significant conflicts of interest, he has apparently failed to recuse himself from Board votes that have promoted his interests in the town of Ave Maria, while continuing to be a strong promoter and proponent of these other interests in the midst of decisions that should properly focus on the Law School’s best interests. This conflicted focus has had the effect of destabilizing Ave Maria School of Law, destroying faculty morale, and devastating the reputation of the Law School in circles of academia, which have resulted in an unprecedented number of transfers of our students to other law schools."

Tom Monaghan's for-profit business-related conflicts of interest include his personal ownership of prime Town real estate and corporate ownership/management in key sectors of Town real estate, businesses (i.e. raw materials for road and home construction), Ave Maria Utilities, control over Ave Maria Town's largest employer (as Chancellor and Board Chairman of AMU), and a new local bank. [AW series on conflict of interest]

Click "More.." below for the Alumni Board's full text, or here for the PDF version. (Comments are at Fumare.)

UPDATE, 10/2/07 - The Alumni's 'no confidence' vote was picked-up by a host of media organizations, including the Detroit News and New Oxford Review. Fumare has links to all the stories here.More...

Tags: accountability

If any shred of respectability is left among the Ave Maria School of Law administrators and Board, this is going to hurt. The stellar list of Catholic legal scholars who run the respected blog "Mirror of Justice" issued a joint statement this evening on the issue of AMSL's governance and employee treatment:

Excerpts:
"The AMSL administration has violated several procedural norms of the secular academy. In this case, we see no tension between those norms and the norms of faith and reason that should guide a Catholic law school. Indeed, what has happened at AMSL appears to us to violate core Catholic norms."

"In suspending the one tenured and two untenured faculty members, AMSL has deprived them of the dignity of their work – their vocation – without adequate process. And, in suspending the tenured faculty member without pay, AMSL has failed to take into account the well-being of that faculty member’s family."

"By the failure to live their Christian commitment, the AMSL Dean and Board cause scandal in the legal, academic, and religious communities. This scandal is exacerbated by the fact that their actions are taken on behalf of a law school named for the Blessed Mother of Christ."

Signatories:
+ Robert John Araujo, S.J., Boston College Jesuit Community
+ Stephen M. Bainbridge, William D. Warren Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
+ Thomas C. Berg, St. Ives Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota)
+ Patrick McKinley Brennan, John F. Scarpa Chair in Catholic Legal Studies, Villanova University School of Law
+ Richard W. Garnett, John Cardinal O’Hara, CSC Associate Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
+ Elizabeth R. Kirk, Associate Director, Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture (formerly a member of the Ave María Law School faculty)
+ Eduardo M. Peñalver, Associate Professor, Cornell University Law School
+ Michael J. Perry, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
+ Mark A. Sargent, Dean and Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law
+ Michael A. Scaperlanda, Gene and Elaine Edwards Family Chair in Law, University of Oklahoma College of Law
+ Elizabeth R. Schiltz, Associate Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota)
+ Steven Shiffrin, Charles Frank Reavis, Sr. Professor of Law, Cornell University Law School
+ Gregory Sisk, Orestes A. Brownson Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota)
+ Susan J. Stabile, Robert and Marion Short Distinguished Chair in Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota)
+ Robert K. Vischer, Associate Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota)

This is a very important pivotal moment that shows the true unity that uniquely binds both Catholic scholars and the community of academic legal professionals. Let's see if the as-of-yet-silent "Fellowship of Catholic Scholars" shows a fraction of the character and authentic fellowship on display at Mirror of Justice.

How many good people - from students, to employees, to estranged colleagues, to well-respected professionals in the field - how many need to shout "Enough!" before Tom Monaghan puts his pride aside and recognizes that he is destroying the very thing that he claims to be upholding?

Mirror of Justice - full text | Fumare - commentary

UPDATE, 9/13/2007 - Frontpage headlines in today's issue of The Wanderer (subscription required): "At Ave Maria Law School.. Professor 'Terminated' For 'Touching' Secretary". It discusses the railroading of AMSL co-founder and tenured Professor Stephen Safranek [1,2], and quotes heavily from Fumare's comments [1,2].

UPDATE, 9/14/2007 - Media coverage about the Mirror of Justice statement is spreading: Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog, Naples Daily News (syndicated to Bonita News and Marco News), Catholic News Agency, ABA Journal [1,2], Brian Leiter's Law School Reports, Professor Bainbridge, Univ. of Cincinnati's TaxProf, Professor Greg Reynolds' Instapundit, Mark Shea, PrawfsBlawg,
5pm - add Commweal Magazine blog, Blast Furnace Canada blog

Tags: dean-amok, conflict-of-interest, accountability

Ave Maria School of Law Dean Bernard Dobranski has been fishing for headlines the past two weeks. And, boy, did it backfire.

On August 30, this puff piece was released by Monaghan neocon apologist Brent Bozell [1,2] on his "news" website - "Ave Maria School Weathers Critics, Moves Forward, Says Dean". The (self) interview included softballs like:

Q - "Tom Monaghan earned about $1 billion when he sold Domino's Pizza, and a large chunk of that went into the Ave Maria Foundation. Is it fair to say that the Ave Maria School of Law and all it provides - jobs for faculty and administration, scholarships for students, and a top-notch law education - would not exist were it not for Tom Monaghan?"
A - (Dobranski excerpt) "Oh, absolutely - first of all, it was his idea. It was his vision."

The notion that AMSL was Tom Monaghan's "idea" and "vision" contradicts Dobranski's own version of the founding of AMSL from Fall 2004 (University of Toledo Law Review, 36 U. Tol. L. Rev. 55): "In our first year, among those on the faculty were four of the original five founding faculty who suggested the creation of a new Catholic law school to Mr. Monaghan in 1998" and "Mr. Monaghan's interest in starting a law school at this time had been stimulated by a group of five faculty members from the University of Detroit Law School.."

In the puff piece, Dobranski also attempted to make the point that ABA accreditation standards support the current exclusion of faculty from institutional decision-making processes. He conveniently failed to cite the ABA Standard that says "Except in circumstances demonstrating good cause, a dean should not be appointed or reappointed to a new term over the stated objection of a substantial majority of the faculty." [Recall that the AMSL faculty voted no-confidence in Dobranski's leadership.] The central issue is NOT whether the faculty should have been given a larger say in the Board's decision to move to Florida. The central issue is that one person, Tom Monaghan, used financial coercion to make the Board impotent, requiring that duty to his personal interests be placed above those of institutional interests; as such, the Board was never in an autonomous position to determine the institution's destiny. [see also Fumare]

The Bozell article was only part of the Dean's campaign for headlines. In mid-August, he started creating an air that all is well at AMSL with the exception of a few bitter power-grabbing faculty who simply don't want to move [1,2]. Later, on August 24, Dobranski sent this email to the AMSL community. In Dobranski's typical lawyerly fashion, he used carefully chosen words to paint the image of an ABA that is close to dropping its investigation of the school's sub-standard administration.. an ABA that only remains interested in a small technicality involving "undisclosed" faculty complainers. That email was later supported in public by Dobranski's Bozell article:

Q - "So, the ABA has essentially given you a fairly clean bill of health?"
A - [Dobranski] "Yes, there's one item - and when you throw enough mud, something likely will stick. And what stuck was this one thing about faculty leaving. I'm very confident we'll be able to respond to this one concern. We will have no trouble convincing them that we are able to recruit new faculty - that's not a difficulty. But what's very interesting is that there's nothing about governance, shared responsibility, or academic freedom, which were the thrust of the complaints."

No problemo? On Friday September 7, the Dean released a terse email to the AMSL community "in the interest of clarifying my August 24, 2007 statement regarding the ABA inquiry". Dobranski cut/pasted the verbatim request from the ABA to AMSL for "all relevant information necessary to demonstrate compliance" with an ABA Standard involving faculty.

Why would Ave Maria - an organization that has never felt obligated to inform its constituents of administrative matters - release such a verbatim "clarification" using quotes from the ABA? Did the ABA tell Dobranski to clear-up an air of misrepresentation?

Dobranski really stepped in it; his aforementioned "clarification" was a red flag to journalists (including AW). A lead news article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education reads "Ave Maria School of Law May Face Threat to Accreditation". Yesterday's Wall Street Journal Law Blog reads "More Trouble for Ave Maria School of Law". The story was also picked-up by Michigan Daily and Mirror of Justice.

At minimum, Dobranski's September 7 "clarifying" shows that his statements - and the conclusions that he extrapolates from the statements of others like the ABA - cannot be trusted. Likewise, we should reconsider Dobranski's ability to accurately draw conclusions from statements that he read in the Safranek and Fr. William Thomas incidents.

h/t Fumare

Tags: accountability

Rude awakening #1 for the first day of class at Ave Maria University-
It isn't a Catholic school

Over the weekend, the spokesperson for the Diocese of Venice (Florida) was quoted as saying "[AMU] is not a Catholic university. It's a private university in the Catholic tradition."

Only institutions approved by their local diocese can be called "Catholic". This is no trivial matter. It is a measure designed to preserve accountability and chain-of-command with entities that want to be affiliated with the official Church. Surely Tom Monaghan knows this, given the brain trust of high powered Catholics that surround him. Yet, since AMU's inception, Ave Maria has billed itself everywhere as "the first new Catholic university to be built in the United States in more than 40 years". Their website talks about it as a "Catholic environment", "a vibrant Catholic university", and "an institution of Catholic higher education that would be faithful to the Magisterium".

Faithful? AMU's website states further that it "pledges faithfulness to the teachings of the Church" and that AMU "is known for faithfulness to the magisterium of the Catholic Church".

If Tom Monaghan is going to walk the talk, he can begin by ceasing and correcting his incessant and deceptive use of "Catholic university" in marketing his Ave Maria "brand". Your Bishop has spoken, Mr. Monaghan. Will you comply, or is marketing (like unionization) another one of those things "that the hierarchy doesn't know as much about" and can therefore be ignored?

Tags: accountability, liturgy

Professor Emeritus Charles E. Rice; AMSL Co-founder
August 15, 2007

What Monaghan and Dobranski have done and are doing at Ave Maria School of Law [AMSL] is objectively evil and contrary to Catholic social teaching. No good will come of it. In my opinion, Monaghan and Dobranski, without procedural or substantive justification, have taken the livelihoods of honest and competent professors, with large families, whose commitment to AMSL is, in my opinion, greater than that of either Monaghan or Dobranski. The dismissal of the faculty members is part of a process that can fairly be described, in a non-technical and non-criminal sense, as a hijacking of AMSL by Monaghan and Dobranski. Those who signed on with Dobranski to take the jobs of those unjustly discharged are materially cooperating in evil. Perhaps some were impelled by their own economic circumstances. I offer no personal judgment on any of them or on Monaghan and Dobranski. But I would surely advise any interested parties that it makes sense not to have anything to do with any enterprise in which either Monaghan or Dobranski is even slightly involved. The actions of Monaghan and Dobranski may have made AMSL a terminal case. Its potential has been undermined by the subordination of its interests to other interests and by the subservience of its misnamed Board of Governors to that subordination. The Governors who should have performed their fiduciary duty to AMSL are somewhere in the tall grass to which they lit out when choosing time occurred. I emphasize that I offer no judgment on the motivations or purpose of them or of Monaghan and Dobranski. But it is fair to say that their actions and inactions, in objective terms, are reprehensible, immoral and despicable.

Fumare - comments

UPDATE, 8/15/2007 - America's oldest continuously published national Catholic weekly, The Wanderer, has (again) put the governance of AMSL on its front page (for the week beginning August 16). The large 2-page article chronicles facts and statements quite well. The newspaper states that it covers news "from an orthodox Catholic perspective". Again, AW points-out that the orthodox conservative Catholic base that Monaghan worked in the past is now in open revolt against his practices.

Tags: dean-amok, accountability

That is the opinion of many individuals in the Ave Maria School of Law community.

Dean Bernard Dobranski shirks his fiduciary duty to attend AMSL Alumni Association Board meetings and answer the questions of these elected stakeholders; yet, he spends 2 hours on the phone doing an interview with the blog "Above the Law: A Legal Tabloid". PART 1 | PART 2

In Part 2 of that interview, in response to the question of whether AMSL's governance is overly influenced by Tom Monaghan's financial support, Dobranski said "If you want to get call it meddling, you can call it meddling, but I think it's proper for the Chairman of our Board, who has been our chief financial benefactor, saying I think our law school would thrive and do better down there [in Naples]."

Meddling? How about "gross conflict of interest"? Dobranski cannot be serious when he talks of Chairman Monaghan's "I think our law school would thrive and do better" as if it were merely a "suggestion" to the Board. Tom Monaghan is not only AMSL Board Chairman and primary donor, but also a speculative Florida real estate developer. The facts are that:

• Monaghan has personal land holdings, for-profit businesses (including the local utility company), and a bank as part of Ave Maria Town's development
• Monaghan had an ultimatum that AMSL move to his Florida development or have the school's money yanked

This is the epitome of coercive conflict of interest, where a non-profit entity is manipulated to bolster the Chairman's other entities.

In the same interview Dobranski said "I'm not ashamed of getting as much money as I can, including from Tom's foundation, to help defray the financial burdens for our students". I bet. But why stop at scholarships. With that thinking, the Dean should get as much money as he can from Tom for faculty salaries, and books, and nice cherry paneling. Those are all "good" too, just like scholarships. But a simply understanding of utilitarianism would show that the goodness of the end does not determine the goodness (or sensibility) of the means. If the Dean has neither the will, the discipline, nor the plain sight to recognize the undue influence that financial dependency on one donor brings to a non-profit academic enterprise, he should step down for putting Monaghan above mission.

The good people at Holy Spirit Catholic Church had the foresight to see that Tom Monaghan "gives" to "get" control; they also had the discipline to reject such a "gift". Dobranski is the only law school dean in the country who is bound to report regularly to one donor, at the donor's office. That bind might bring tuition down via scholarships, but it also brings down autonomy and institutional integrity. It is interesting how those who sell their autonomy to Tom Monaghan demand that everyone else in the organization do the same.

AveWatch issues a public invitation to the Dean: Write a brief piece for AW in which you formally re