Ohio Northern University has the state’s second oldest law school. But its quality and finances have gotten worse under its dean, Charles Rose III, who recently oversaw the suspension of a conservative law professor, but refused to tell him why.
The university has now rewarded Rose for his ineptitude by giving him a new five-year employment contract.
He trumpeted his new contract two months after abruptly suspending Professor Scott Gerber, a leading expert on the jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
“I wanted to drop a quick note to let you know that I have negotiated a new 5-year contract with the university and will be with you as the dean of the college of law for the foreseeable future,” Rose wrote in an email three weeks ago to law professors.
In mid-April, Rose suspended Gerber, after removing him from his classroom by security guards.
Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, criticized the reappointment of Rose in a June 12 post. Gerber had attracted criticism from some progressives for speaking out against “diversity, equity and inclusion” gibberish.
“Well, not only was Dean Rose not dismissed, he was reappointed. Can we say ‘rewarded?’ It certainly seems as though ONU’s president and board of trustees found something to like in the dean’s recent conduct,” Wood wrote.
ONU has been criticized by media entities like the National Review and civil-liberties groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), for reportedly suspending Gerber on the grounds of insufficient “collegiality,” without explaining what Gerber said that was “uncollegial.”
Robert Shibley, Gerber’s lawyer and the former executive director of FIRE, says that “ONU continues to refuse to tell Prof. Gerber what he is supposed to have done that warrants this treatment. I find it very disturbing that an institution of higher education, which is supposed to be committed to the pursuit of truth, is instead dedicating itself to keeping one of its professors in ignorance about allegations it claims are so severe that it justifies sending police and campus security to remove him from campus.”
An investigation into Gerber apparently began in January, but university officials never told Gerber what it was about and initially said his participation in it was voluntary, notes the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
Gerber refused to participate since he was not informed of the allegations against him, and was subsequently accused of “insubordination” in violation of protections contained in the faculty handbook, according to FIRE.
Gerber pointed out in the Wall Street Journal that “insufficient ‘collegiality’ isn’t listed as adequate cause in ONU’s faculty handbook for dismissing a tenured faculty member.”
The university claims Gerber knows “the general nature of the allegations that have been made against him.” But it has not given any specifics or concrete examples, conclusorily claiming that “ONU has done its best given the nature of the charges to address and resolve this matter amicably and confidentially with Dr. Gerber.”
The NAS’s Wood said that the utter lack of specifics shows that what “ONU doesn’t like” is not any illegal conduct, but rather, “the manner of Professor Gerber’s expression,” which it absurdly claims “somehow poses a danger to ‘faculty, staff, and students.’” Discussing the “danger” claim, Wood notes that it “is impossible to know what this really means. We live at a time when colleges are full of loose talk about the ‘harm’ done by the expression of an opinion with which the auditor disagrees. But universities have historically been places in which strong disagreements are aired. Shutting down free expression to ‘protect’ people from hearing views they dislike is unacceptable under the doctrine of academic freedom.”
