UPDATE, 12/17/07 - Michigan Lawyers Weekly has additional coverage

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On Friday (Dec. 14), the Michigan Supreme Court denied Tom Monaghan's request that the Court review his failed appeal involving a wrongful termination whistleblower lawsuit filed by former Ave Maria College employee Katherine Ernsting. For well over 2.5 years, Monaghan tried every legal approach in the book to keep Ernsting's case from coming to trial. The Supreme Court was his last hope. The Court said:

"On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal the March 6, 2007 judgment of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court."

A copy of the Court's ruling is here (PDF).

Ernsting was fired by Monaghan shortly after she provided the U.S. Department of Education (ED) with information requested by the ED concerning Ave Maria operations. That investigation ultimately caught Ave Maria in a financial aid sleight of hand that was benefiting the start-up Ave Maria University in Florida. Monaghan was forced to pay over $250,000 back to the government. Monaghan's lawyers claim that Ernsting's termination was part of the "wind down" of Ave Maria College Michigan. But, this appears to be a weak argument since, at the time of Ernsting's firing, there were still approximately 200 students at the College. The law mandates that a person be assigned to oversee the distribution of federal aid at an academic institution; so, another person was hired to replace Ernsting as chief financial aid officer of the College.

The Ernsting case has already received attention in the legal media; since the case is now free to go to trial, it will surely receive more public attention.

Ernsting case background | Supreme Court case background

A summary of the AveWatch articles that cover the growing number of lawsuits against Tom Monaghan can be found here. AveWatch's RSS Feed is here (try Google Reader).

Tags: lawsuit, employee-treatment

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

Tom Monaghan has a long history of demanding that Ave Maria enterprises use "at will" employment contracts. It removes the obligation to offer any justification for firing people. Termination can come without notice. The employee can then be coerced into signing a non-disparagement agreement (or worse); fired employees who need to care for self and family are more likely to sign gag orders.

On August 27, 2007, in a gathering (with media) on the first day of class at AMU, Monaghan saw fit to call former Ave Maria College employees "academic terrorists". Later in the day, Monaghan again broadcast that notion to the world by reiterating the phrase on the radio (WDEO, hour #2 of "Kresta in the Afternoon"). The terrorist label was met with strong criticism (1,2,3)

Name-calling and labels have been exchanged by supporters and critics alike; thus, AveWatch didn't make much of this story. But, an important question has arisen. Did Tom Monaghan's remarks about College employees - given the remark's repetition, public nature, lack of necessity, and career-oriented injurious effect - violate his non-disparagement agreement with former College employees? If so, what are the ramifications? Are those individuals now free to speak?

Tags: employee-treatment

[Update below]
When Ave Maria School of Law's Dean Bernard Dobranski dumped beloved co-founder and Professor Emeritus Charles Rice, he shipped Rice's office to him by UPS Next Day Service. It was a petty act, to the point of laughable, for the irrational paranoia that it uncovered.

Add to that the following from 27 Sept. 2007:


Seated is Stephen Safranek, the AMSL co-founder and tenured professor who was recently suspended without pay - an act that triggered vigorous protest by the AMSL Alumni Association Board, a majority of the AMSL alumni (see also 1,2), and by a group of prominent Catholic legal scholars. Safranek is being watched in his AMSL office by security guards from Domino's Farms, employees of Tom Monaghan. Safranek was banned from campus at the start of the semester in a systematic attempt to purge the campus of those who would point-out the institution's gross mismanagement (see also 1,2; summary here). AMSL's administration is currently under investigation for violations of accreditation standards.

Ave watch, indeed. What's next, bugged rooms? Is this more of Dobranski's twisted idea of "conditions adequate to attract and retain a competent faculty"?

This is what happens to those Ave Maria employees who stop putting their faith in a failed system dominated by tight central control. It is conservative Catholic scholars, not liberals or heretics, who are now the ones labeled by Monaghan as "academic terrorists". Legitimate respectful objection makes you a "terrorist" to be put under surveillance. What price is the Catholic community willing to pay before it realizes that no amount of money and control from an ostentacious billionaire with a high school diploma can realize the mission of the Church in higher education? Violating human dignity is not necessary to promote human dignity. Those who are anxious to view Monaghan as a savior and protector of Catholic principles must start realizing that "domestic tyranny" is as great as any threat from outside the Church.

UPDATE, 10/2/07 - Visitors to Fumare have offered first-hand accounts to corroborate the aforementioned. Also, from Fumare's comment box, former Ave Maria College Dean Dr. Christopher Beiting had this to say:

I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned the fact that Dobranski has long had a hidden camera in his office, monitered by Security in Domino's Farms. I learned it through one of my former students at AMC, who worked for Alpha Omega for a while, and was surprised, to say the least, to discover it. If memory serves, Dobranski even acknowledged this fact when asked about it in one of these town meetings of his.
So. Security teams AND hidden cameras. All combined with a prediliction for making people "unpersons" when they step out of line. And all of this in a setting where people still have to answer to regular law agencies. Now, riddle me this, what are things going to be like in Avemariaville, with its special administrative district status, where those mountebanks will *control* the law? What will life be like in a town where something like Alpha Omega security will really BE the police?
In the beginning of my fight to help preserve AMC, I never wished for AMU to fail, and I resent Monaghan for assuming that I and others were so motivated when we weren't, let alone characterizing us as "academic terrorists". But now? Oh, heck yeah. As nearly as I can tell, Avemariaville will develop with the worst features of a bananna republic and Calvin's Geneva, though absent the high-quality education.
You want to see the future of Avemariaville, folks?
Take a good, hard look at the Avewatch picture of Safranek.
Now ask youself whether you want yourself, or anyone you love, to live under such conditions.

Contact AveWatch if you have first hand knowledge of excesses or irregularities in Tom Monaghan's oversight of security.

Tags: dean-amok, employee-treatment, environment

The following is, by far, the most commonly heard "insider" story concerning Tom Monaghan. Ask a past or present employee from any of the Ave Maria entities about this story, and he or she will probably be familiar with it. Multiple current and former employees have offered AveWatch corroborating accounts. Yet, to date, it remains unpublished.

Tom Monaghan is a staunch believer and enforcer of dress codes, particularly for women. In large and small meetings, Monaghan has been asked by female employees if they could wear slacks in lieu of the required skirts/dresses on winter days when bitter sub-zero wind-chills whip through Michigan. This was a significant safety concern for women who needed to do regular travel on the snow-covered roads of Michigan as part of their employment responsibilities. Monaghan's response was a consistent "no" to slacks; however, he would "allow" women to wear slacks into and out-of the building if they immediately changed into their dress in the bathroom upon entering the building.

But, requiring a dress or skirt was not enough for Mr. Monaghan. It had to be of a 'proper' length at/below the knees.

Shirley Daum was a married mother who worked at Domino Farms. According to co-workers and friends, she was a solid employee who "always acted professionally" and was "a cheerful and delightful person to be around". As the account goes, in Mr. Monaghan's outer office area, he noticed one day that Daum was wearing a skirt whose length might not have met the knee dress code. In the presence of other employees, Monaghan then proceeded to tell Daum to kneel in front of him so that he could determine whether the skirt touched the floor and was subsequently in compliance with the dress code.

Can you imagine the humiliation of a married woman being told by her boss to kneel in his presence, in front of co-workers? To be clear, AveWatch is not implying that the instruction to kneel was done with sexual intent. But, it doesn't need to be overtly sexual to be humiliating. It should also be remembered that a perpetrator's private "intent" is not necessarily transferable to a participant or observer who may have very different perceptions about the intent.

AveWatch asked Daum's former co-workers if she did anything to provoke such treatment, or if she dressed provocatively? "That depends upon whose definition of 'provocative' you're referring to," said a current employee who wished to remain anonymous. "It seems that anything straying from drab 'Catholic Amish' garb doesn't fit with Mr. Monaghan's taste for women and is thus 'provoking'. He appears to be intimidated by attractive women who dress smart, sharp, or snappy. I would not call her dress provocative by any normal person's definition of the word." Former employees corrobrate this account, telling AveWatch that Daum "always dressed very professionally".

There is a great contradiction between Monaghan's apparent need to exert control over his real-life local female employees and with his willingness to interview for a sexed-up fantasy-making magazine like GQ.. a magazine that he'd likely not tolerate a female employee posing for (or a male employee reading while at Ave Maria). A popular story, told with a chortle, at Ave Maria School of Law is Monaghan's yearly suggestion to students that they spend $10,000 to get their wardrobe started. His focus on clothes adds to the notion that Monaghan is perpetually more concerned with style and perception over substance.

AveWatch readers should ask which of the following begins to rise to the level of harassment and "intimidation" - a pat on the arm with a smile and 'Good morning', or telling a subordinate to kneel in the presence of co-workers?

Tags: employee-treatment

[This post is a follow-up to today's earlier entry "Intimidation and Uninvited Touching?". Start there.]

SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas endorsed Ave Maria School of Law at the beginning in 1999. Since then, he has remained its friend and offered speeches and lectures. Maybe Thomas will call the Dean to remind him about the disgrace that goes with weak allegations of physical/sexual harassment and the attempt to derail one's career:

"This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree."
- Clarence Thomas; October 11, 1991, speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Anita Hill allegations

Dean Dobranski's perverted twisting of an AMSL staffer's complaint is no less a lynching on Professor Safranek; whether intentional or not, Dobranski's fabricated air of sexual harassment seems clear to any fair-minded person. Safranek and the faculty who "deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas" know all too well that "unless you kowtow to an older order, this is what will happen to you".

This is an affront to higher education, both Catholic and legal. It is also an affront to victims and justice. The Dean's ludicrious interpretation of the complaint discredits the efforts and stories of women who have been - and will be - real victims of physical/sexual harassment and workplace intimidation.

If this incident is an example of the accuracy and objectivity of Dobranski to act as unaccountable fact-finder and judge, how can anyone trust as credibile his behavior and decisions in the "Boys Cherries" incident where civil and canoncial authorities were frustrated in their investigation? (background here; series here). How much of Dobranski's slick and twisted lawyerly wordsmithing is imbedded in his explanation of the matter? AveWatch already demonstrated that much of the explanation was empty. But how many more half-truths and airs are there? For example, when Dobranski says that (emphasis added) "no Law School employee" ever "handled, touched, or possessed" the pornographic hard drive, does that mean that a non-employee at AMSL, like a student, may have done so? This is the level of scrutiny and skepticism that any statement from Ave Maria must be subjected to for an accurate portrayal of a situation. It is no wonder that AMSL co-founder and former Board member Charles Rice called for an independent investigation of the matter.

[clip from AMSL's 2007-2007 Prospectus and Application]

Tags: employee-treatment, dean-amok, environment

What constitutes "intimidation" and "touching" of a level or type to warrant suspension-without-pay and termination proceedings against a tenured professor at a law school?

You decide. AveWatch shows what is said to be a key basis for Ave Maria School of Law Dean Bernard Dobranski's actions against co-founder and tenured professor Stephen Safranek. Click here or "More.." below. Will you come to the same conclusion?

UPDATE, 8/29/2007 -
+ WhoseAMSOL has an insightful analysis of the timing and policies involved
+ Fumare has commentary
UPDATE, 8/30/2007 -
+ be sure to read Part II: "Fabricating An Air of Sexual Harassment"
+ comment from AW visitor: "Next month Dean Dobranski, as the president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, will be chairing the annual meeting of that organization around the theme "The Idea of the Catholic University for the Twenty-First Century". One may as well have asked John Geoghan to lead a discussion of the pastoral counseling of youth."
+ hat-tip to Brian Leiter's Law School Reports for link
+ hat-tip to Mirror of Justice for link "Just when I thought things couldn't get worse"More...

Tags: employee-treatment, dean-amok

Ave Maria School of Law Professors Myers, Murphy, and Falvey have released a statement on the popular legal website "Mirror of Justice" concerning the administration's treatment of co-founder and tenured professor Stephen Safranek.

Excerpt: "Although the suspension [of Safranek] appears unjust in itself, the Dean's chosen procedures are absolutely lacking in even the veneer of fundamental fairness or due process norms. Indeed, the suspension occurred without deliberation by the full Board of Governors, without faculty consultation, without due process, and without any meaningful explanation as to why the circumstances satisfy the relevant standard of an "extraordinary" case. This abuse of this procedure has effectively stripped Professor Safranek, a husband and father of seven children, of the very security that tenure is supposed to afford faculty members at law schools appproved by the American Bar Association. In our view, these actions (and many others) reveal the extent to which this adminsitration has betrayed the Law School's Mission."

Mirror of Justice full text

UPDATE: Fumare has a helpful graphic to keep track of the incredible shrinking Law School Board of Governors

Tags: accountability, employee-treatment, dean-amok

The Ave Maria School of Law's Alumni Association Board released a statement today calling for Dean Bernard Dobranski to "act transparently" in the hostile proceedings taken against co-founder and tenured professor Stephen Safranek. The Alumni Board also asked Dobranski to "disclose the identity of the members making up the relevant Executive Committee" involved in Safranek's proceedings, and to disclose the current members of the Board given the recent resignations of two AMSL Board members [1,2] - resignations that the Dean has yet to recognize in public.

Alumni Board statement excerpt: Suppression of disagreement is a gravely erroneous basis for terminating a tenured faculty member at a Catholic academic institution. The administration's and Board's views do not command ethical, moral, or religious assent for a Catholic professor. Prominent professors at other law schools have publicly called attention to our school's treatment of disagreeing faculty.

Alumni Board Statement at Fumare

Tags: accountability, employee-treatment, dean-amok

AveWatch recently reported on the steps taken to fire Professor Stephen Safranek, a co-founder and tenured faculty member at Ave Maria School of Law. The Catholic legal community, along with students and alumni, have protested.

Tonight, multiple unconfirmed reports to AveWatch state that Professor Safranek has now been banned from access to his office, the Law School grounds, and his School email account - all without being formally terminated and without due process. His pay and benefits will, apparently, be suspended in September.

Any faculty, staff, students, alumni, or Board members who wish to make a statement can do so through AveWatch's contact form.

Contrast the treatment of co-founders Charles Rice (Professor Emeritus) and Stephen Safranek to that of Chaplain Fr. Michael Orsi. How is it that someone like Orsi - who has behaved with shocking carelessness [1,2,3] and invited controversy upon the Law School - receives not even a reprimand or sanction from Dean Dobranski nor Chairman Monaghan? It is no coincidence that Chaplain Orsi is reported to be the loudest non-administration "yes man" for Monaghan on AMSL's campus. This is the Ave Maria culture on display for the world to see - If you put duty to Tom Monaghan's whim above every other duty and obligation, you will be protected. If you say that duty to Mr. Monaghan is not synonymous with duty to institutional "mission", then you become a target. That is the internal rot bred by an institution laiden with administrative conflict-of-interest.

It is time for the Board of Governors at Ave Maria School of Law, and the School's entire community, to stop this embarrassment and say "Enough."

Fumare comments here and here

UPDATED, 7/29/2007 - statement released by Professor Kevin Lee (click 'More..' below)
UPDATED, 7/30/2007 - letter of suspension from Dobranski (released by Fumare) confirms the aforementionedMore...

Tags: employee-treatment, dean-amok

Michael Scaperlanda, a Dean at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, released an "open letter" today on the popular Catholic legal website "Mirror of Justice". The letter is addressed to Ave Maria School of Law Dean Bernard Dobranski and AMSL's Board of Governors.

Scaperlanda excerpt: Dean Dobranski, are you willing to step aside as dean and humbly join the faculty, if that is what it takes to heal this broken community? Dean and Board, to the extent that you have fallen short, are you now willing to treat the Faculty – as sharers in the law school’s governance – with respect and dignity? Where you have acted inappropriately, are you willing to humbly ask forgiveness?

MoJ letter

Tags: employee-treatment

AveWatch recently reported on the termination proceedings initiated by Ave Maria School of Law (AMSL) against co-founder and tenured professor Stephen Safranek. A number of students and alumni contacted the Law School and AveWatch to express their concerns. Many saw this as yet another embarrassing public blunder that further destabilizes a school that is already facing an investigation into violations of accreditation standards, faculty and alumni votes of no-confidence in the administration, and the controversial decision to close the Michigan school and re-open it in a South Florida real estate development owned (for-profit) and run by billionaire AMSL Board Chairman Tom Monaghan.

Excerpt from one letter:

I have no comprehension why a man who has sacrificed and dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the students of Ave Maria would be subjected to a less than dignified removal. If these rumors are in fact true, I would sincerely hope that you and the rest of the administration would look at your own actions in light of our law school’s mission. I have now observed countless criticisms by this administration charged at alumni and the alumni group I have now become a part of at attempting to destroy the law school. If speaking up for the proper respect and human dignity of those within our community is wrong, then I went to the wrong law school or went to one where the mission has become nothing more than merely words with no meaning. I believe that not to be the case, but I would consider such an act against Professor Safranek to be an act in a reign of terror and a seriously flawed application of the mission of Ave Maria within its own administration.

Click below to read some of the letters sent to AMSL Dean Bernard Dobranski. Also of interest is Dobranski's response to these concerned students and alumni.

UPDATE, 7/8/2007 - More letters are coming-in to AveWatch. Visitors - please take the time to read them. These young articulate Catholic lawyers ARE "the mission" of the Law School... and now that mission speaks as a powerful testament to AMSL's administration. More...

Tags: employee-treatment, dean-amok

It's more of the same strong-arm tactics.

On Monday, Ave Maria School of Law's Dean Bernard Dobranski attempted to censure and begin dismissal proceedings against tenured professor Stephen J. Safranek, a founder of the school. Professor Safranek was involved with the faculty's complaint to the school's accreditor, has filed a complaint with law enforcement against Dobranski, and recently called for a renewal of the faculty's earlier "vote of no confidence" in governance.

Professor Safranek has worked in prestigious law firms, and clerked for Judge O'Scannlain on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has been admitted to practice before federal courts, including the US Supreme Court. He has numerous publications and is the Executive Director and Founder of The True Marriage Project, an extension of Safranek's interest in "helping to ensure the survival and growth of the institution most critical to society, the family".

Safranek is in good company. Recall that another Law School founder, Professor Emeritus Charles Rice of Notre Dame, was also terminated by Dobranski and booted from the Law School Board for questioning institutional governance and the legality of Monaghan's proposed Florida town concept. Ave Maria's history of firing whistleblowers is well-known.

More will be posted as this story develops. See Fumare for commentary here and here.

UPDATE, 6/28 - A friendly hat-tip goes to Mirror of Justice for picking-up this story. It is worth noting that the Mirror of Justice post was made by Mark A. Sargent, the Dean of the Villanova University School of Law for the past ten years.

UPDATE, 8/1 - for a summary of all AveWatch.org posts on Professor Safranek, click here.

Tags: employee-treatment, accountability, dean-amok

On Tuesday June 5, AveWatch released the story of an Ave Maria University Latin American Campus (AMULAC) faculty member who filed complaints with the Florida Department of Education and the American Embassy (Nicaragua) about her workplace treatment. Within 24 hours of appearing on this website, one of her problems was solved - a reinstatement of medical insurance that, for three weeks, Ave Maria refused to fix.

But some site visitors wrote to protest our connection between the fixing of the professor's insurance and her story appearing on AveWatch. "Here's the story," said one visitor, "AveWatch didn't wait long enough to see the issue resolved."

But there was more.

What AveWatch did not reveal back on June 6 was that yet another AMULAC faculty member - one who also had a long ongoing claim against AMULAC - suddenly received a verbal agreement to rectify his problems. This unexpected new tone surfaced within 12 hours of the June 5 AveWatch post. Earlier today, part of that second professor's issue over severance payment was resolved by receiving a check.

AMULAC (Nicaragua) took steps to fix long-standing problems and extend an apology to the professors involved. That's good; credit should be given where credit is due. It is regrettable, however, that such steps did not come without public exposure. But AMU (Florida), for its part, appears utterly incapable of examining its own conscience and much less of being penitent. In response to an inquiry sent by the Florida Department of Education concerning the second professor's severance issue, AMU VP John Sites said, "I would like to summarize the matter this way: ... the University explained the complaint as a resigned and ill faculty member's angry attempt to embarrass the campus at which he worked because he did not get the amount of severance to which he thought he was entitled" (May 15, 2007).

Tags: employee-treatment

Bleed 'em to death in court.

That's the deep-pockets approach to Catholic social justice of billionaire Tom Monaghan. AveWatch has been following Monaghan's attempt to block Katherine Ernsting's wrongful termination suit from going to trial [1,2,3] . Ernsting was fired from Ave Maria shortly after she reported illegal distribution of student federal aid on the start-up Florida campus. Her reports to federal investigators lead, in part, to a $259,000 payback levied by the Department of Education against Monaghan.

Ernsting fulfilled her duty as Financial Aid Officer and saved many thousands of dollars in illegal taxpayer aid from propping billionaire Monaghan's Florida venture. Unlike Tom Monaghan, Ernsting does not have a donor base that will fund stall tactics in court. Unlike Monaghan, she does not have booming for-profit businesses, personal investments, and a bank tied to south Florida's real estate development. Many of Ernsting's Ave Maria colleagues are limited in their ability to help after their signing of a non-disparagement agreement to secure severance payment from Ave.

With one hand, Tom Monaghan equates donations to himself as donations to "the Church" that are "for the good of your soul". With the other hand, Monaghan denies a fellow Catholic and dedicated employee the justice of having her case heard before a judge. When asked about examining the merits of Ernsting's case in court, Monaghan's lawyer admitted "We hope we don't get to that point" (Naples News, March 24, 2007). Will Catholics be content to stand for this duplicity?

Today, Ernsting's friends announce the creation of a legal expense fund to help cover the costs incurred to get the case before a judge (which, after two years and thousands in court costs, still has not happened).

This is an opportunity to have Tom Monaghan and his administrators explain their governance and employee treatment tactics under oath. Light disinfects.

Click below for additional information on how to help.More...

Tags: employee-treatment

Add another professor to the ever-growing list of employees and students who have filed formal complaints against the practices of Ave Maria University.

This professor joined Ave Maria University Latin American Campus (AMULAC; Nicaragua) in 2006 as a Full Professor and future Academic Dean, so she thought. Written contracts, however, were not issued to new faculty until two months after their arrival in Nicaragua. New faculty were put on a bus, driven to Managua and shown their contracts while locked in the bus. It was there that faculty were surprised to learn that they were hired as instructors and that "employment-at-will" clauses were written into their contracts.

This professor has over thirty years of teaching and administrative experience with institutions in both the U.S. and abroad. She claims that remuneration and benefits for her contract with AMULAC run until September, 2007. Yet, on May 15, 2007, AMULAC cancelled her medical insurance policy without explanation. The professor is now being told that AMU has not reinstated her policy and has no intention of taking any action on the matter. A charge has been filed with the Florida Department of Education concerning the matter.

Back in May, the professor claims that she had difficulty leaving Nicaragua on her arranged flight out of the country. According to her, "It was only after I e-mailed the American Embassy and a local law firm that administration mysteriously" was able to honor her departure. She told the Embassy "I will not be held hostage in Nicaragua."

Sadly, the irregularities continue in Tom Monaghan's Banana Republic, in the tradition of Ave Maria's twisted concept of Catholic social teaching.

UPDATE, 6/6/06 - One day after the release of this story, AveWatch is pleased to announce that the professor's insurance issue was resolved to her satisfaction by AMULAC late yesterday.
Light disinfects.

Tags: employee-treatment

Deal Hudson is the former go-to man on all things Catholic for the Republican National Committee - "former" because of a sex scandal with one of his college freshman students [1, 2, 3]. On March 23, 2007, he released a statement on the firing of AMU Provost Fr. Joseph Fessio. Excerpt:

A friend asked me yesterday "why do conservative Catholics beat each other up so much?". Good question. One reason that I have observed is their parochialism, in the generic sense, that is. They recognize only the validity of their familiar, local form of belief, worship, and spirituality. They need to keep in mind that the Church has a legitimate diversity, as illustrated by the lives of the saints themselves. Fr. Fessio may be one of those saints, for all we know. Monaghan or Healy another.

Is Hudson suggesting that belief-based parochialism on the part of the aforementioned saints in potentia is the basis for Fessio's firing? This seems unlikely given the co-existence of both 'traditional' and more 'charismatic' conservative elements on the Michigan Ave Maria campuses (AMSL, AMC, and St. Mary's). One should also consider the opportunism of these administrators, including the chance to "use" each other to enhance their own personal and collective influence over orthodoxy's rule-or-ruin. Finally, this observer finds no evidence in any available Ave Maria documents to corroborate belief-based tension on any scale, much less that of a magnitude to trigger implosion.

To understand the parochialism that does appear to be at work, one must go beyond spiritual narrowness and consider managerial and cultural narrowness. Unfettered access to extreme wealth creates a dulling insulation that constricts the ability to recognize other valid assessments of situations. When reading Nick Healy's explanations to Tom Monaghan on the basis for strife at Ave Maria, this becomes apparent. Healy's speculative focus on "what is motivating" critics belies his own parochialism - and it is anything but saintly. There may be no better example of this than Healy's analysis of "Thoughts on AMC", a document by former AMC faculty member Janet Smith.More...

Tags: conflict-of-interest, employee-treatment, accountability

This story is breathtaking.

A 2006 graduate of Ave Maria School of Law documents how school administration obstructed his Bar admission, apparently based upon the student's criticism of management. Excerpt:

As you already know, I had passed the Bar Exam in July 2006 but my Bar admission was held up because I had not received character and fitness clearance from the State Bar. Back in October 2006, I wrote to tell you that I suspected that something was not right. I was suspicious in part because on March 30, 2006 I had received an anonymous threatening e-mail, which, among others things, stated:

"How do you expect this law school to sign off on your character and fitness if you criticize every move that the Dean and the faculty, who sign off on your character and fitness, makes. Think about it. I assume you are knowledgeable of this requirement."

It was at this point that I learned that the Ave Maria School of Law Administration had composed (what one reviewer described as) a vicious 10-page memorandum about me, which was accompanied by 56 separate so-called exhibits (totaling more than 250 pages in all), and submitted it to the State Bar’s Character and Fitness Section.

It should be noted that during my time as a student at Ave Maria School of Law I was a strong believer, defender, and follower of the Law School’s stringent Honor Code and was in fact never formally disciplined by the Law School – academically or otherwise. Moreover, as you are all aware, the Law School faculty certified my character and fitness, allowing me to graduate last May 2006.

Accordingly, after the close of my informal interview with the District Committee panel, I received a unanimous favorable decision within 10 minutes.

Hat-tip to Fumare.

Tags: employee-treatment, accountability, environment

The Ave Maria School of Law' s Association of Ave Maria Law Faculty released a significant public statement to their law community colleagues this evening through the popular law blog "Mirror of Justice". The statement objectively spotlights the "climate of fear" tactics used by Tom Monaghan's administration, echoing the climate already reported at AMU. Aside from its content, the statement is significant in both its public and unitive nature, particularly when considered with the AMSL student's recent display of unity and the student-faculty recognition of their school's foundational principles. Excerpts:

Such threats [against the faculty]... would be chilling in any atmosphere, let alone than at AMSL, which is under ABA investigation, and where the Dean already has had a vote of "no-confidence" registered against him by a substantial majority of the faculty.

In light of this conduct, a substantial majority of the faculty of AMSL has no plans to participate in relocating our beloved school to Ave Maria Town in Southwest Florida. No evidence has been presented that would suggest that the move, which was recently approved by our Board of Governors, is in the best interest of AMSL. Indeed, it appears that the move is being pursued primarily to benefit Ave Maria University, an institution that is wholly unrelated to the Law School.

We ask our colleagues at Mirror of Justice and elsewhere whether it is in keeping with Catholic Social Teaching - or even with basic standards of human decency - for a Board of Governors to simply ignore the faculty's detailed allegations of the denial of appropriate faculty governance and academic freedom? Are threats to people's jobs, should they dare speak out against a major change that may (indeed most likely will) bring ruin to the school, acceptable?

Mirror of Justice - full post | PDF of statement
Fumare - comments

UPDATE, 4/30/07 - The story is quickly expanding in the law community: Volokh Conspiracy (a 20K+ visitor/day website run by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh); ProfessorBainbridge.com

UPDATE, 5/11/07 - Naples News picks-up story

Tags: employee-treatment, accountability

The stage is set for even more eyes to be firmly fixed on Tom Monaghan's 2-year attempt to prevent the merit's of a College employee's wrongful-termination suit from being evaluated in trial court (background). Yesterday, the Michigan Court of Appeals denied Monaghan's request to have the Court reconsider its recent decision to allow Kate Ernsting to seek relief under Michigan's "Whistleblower Protection Act". For years, Monaghan has claimed that Ernsting cannot seek protection as "whistleblower" because the investigators that she reported to - officials from the Department of Education's Office of Inspector General - are not "law enforcement", and thus excluded are from the Whistleblower Protection Act.

According to Paul Fransway in the Naples News, Monaghan's legal team indicated that they will file an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court rejects, or decides not to hear, Monaghan's appeal, then a trial court will evaluate Ernsting's claim that she was fired for providing evidence to federal investigators. That investigation resulted in Monaghan having to pay-back over a quarter-million dollars to the government for illegal distribution of financial aid.

Tags: employee-treatment

“The [Ave Maria] administration asked me to stop talking to the Department of Education, but I couldn’t do that. They [Ave] threatened my job if the outcome of the [DoE] investigation didn’t come out right. .. We’ll see whether the law is interested in letting someone with a lot of money hold all the cards.”

Monaghan appears to be using a legal stall tactic - and his deep pockets - to bleed Ernsting dry financially before she can have the merits of her case evaluated in court. Monaghan claims that the federal Department of Education's Office of Inspector General is not a law enforcement agency and, thus, is excluded from Michigan's "Whistleblower Protection Act", which Ernsting seeks relief under. (To note, agents of the Inspector General carry badges, guns, and have the authority to arrest individuals). When asked about examining the merits of Ernsting's case, Monaghan's lawyer even admitted "We hope we don’t get to that point."

Monaghan's lawyers also claim that “Ms. Ernsting’s employment was terminated when the department in which she worked was eliminated as part of the planned wind-down." If so, why does Monaghan not stand with Ernsting as an equal before a judge and allow the case to be decided? Why all the appeals, possibly all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court? It is AveWatch's understanding that, in fact, another person was hired to replace Ernsting as chief financial aid officer of the College; if an institution like Ave Maria receives federal financial aid, then a person at the College must oversee the distribution of that aid, and that person is bound by law to report violations involving federal aid to the Department of Education. At the time of Ernsting's firing, the school still had about 200 students.

Naples News - full story | AveWatch archive - Whistleblower Wins in Court

Tags: employee-treatment

Fr. Joseph Fessio, Provost of AMU, was fired and told to leave campus immediately.
Story developing...

1:45pm - email message sent to AMU community:
"To the Ave Maria University community:
I have been asked to resign my position as provost and leave the campus immediately.
I will miss Ave Maria and the many of you whom I hold dear.
Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J."

4:15pm - University officials are only saying that Fessio was asked to step down as a result of "irreconcilable difference over administrative policies and practices." Students are assembling in protest.

Local coverage:
+ Naples News
+ ABC-7 : "Some students were in tears after hearing the news and a few faculty members have even mentioned leaving the university because of Father Fessio's dismissal."
“I think his presence here is essential for the future of the university.” - Fr. Michael Beers, AMU Dean (Pre-Theologate)

Commentary: Fumare

Tags: employee-treatment

On March 6, The Michigan Court of Appeals overturned an earlier court decision to dismiss a former Ave Maria College (MI) employee's wrongful termination suit.

Statement released by Katherine M. Ernsting (former AMC employee):
"I am happy that the Michigan Court of Appeals saw fit to further define the Michigan Whistleblower Protection Act and to see that it's protection for employees in Michigan remains intact and keeps protecting the people the law was intended to protect. "More...

Tags: employee-treatment

For years, Ave Maria administrators have used threats and rules to suppress complaints by employees and students. Recently, at least one administrator may have gone too far. Is this a climate conducive to rigorous undergraduate critical inquiry, much less the future training of graduate students in law? How much does this 'climate' explain AMU's recent decline in enrollment (reported to be down approximately 30%)?

Will bans on criticism of the institution also be extended to Ave Maria Town, formally or by informal blackballing?More...

Tags: accountability, employee-treatment, environment

In a strong statement yesterday, the Ave Maria School of Law's Alumni Association Board of Directors says that school administrators refused to allow the Association to communicate official business with its alumni constituency. Earlier, the Alumni Board drafted a statement condemning the closure of the school and the manner in which the decision was handled. The Alumni Board also claimed yesterday that AMSL administration sent an unauthorized message to alumni purporting to be from the Alumni Board. "... this tends to confirm our earlier-stated reservations about governance of the school" [click 'More..." below to read the statement]More...

Tags: accountability, employee-treatment

Two AMC faculty were given a choice - sign a letter retracting their report to federal investigators (i.e. lie) or be kicked off the payroll.More...

Tags: employee-treatment, accountability

August 11, 2006 - Ave Maria School of Law Founding Faculty member Charles Rice was issued a dismissal letter by Dean Bernie Dobranski who cited Rice's May 2006 letter to the AMSL Board. Rice responds.More...

Tags: employee-treatment, accountability