On the front page of my Journal Gazette.. today 9/3/14 ... Wednesday. Title: PURDUE INSISTS WARTELL CASE FILES BE KEPT SECRET Rebecca S. Green ... The Journal Gazette. Having lost every effort so far to keep the so called TRIMBLE REPORT under wraps. Purdue Universitys attorneys are now seeking a protective order in the case steming from the 2011 removal of IPFW Chancellor Mike Wartell. On Tuesday, the schools attorneys asked a federal court judge to allow them to keep the report secret, or at least parts of it, because of its sensitive investigative nature and argue again that it is protected by attorney-client privilege. It appears, according to the proposed protective order, the document would be disclosed only to the parties in the lawsuit and kept from everyone else. But the attorney-client privilege argument hasnt held up well in previous attempts to keep the report from Wartells attorneys in the battle over the former Chancellors forced retirement. And their federal request that it not be disclosed to the public is in direct opposition to a state-level ruling that the document is a public record. Tuesdays filing, which includes a copy of the proposed protective order, comes just days after U.S. District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. said the report should be handed over to Wartell and his attorneys. According to the federal lawsuit, in late 2010 or early 2011, then -Purdue President France Cordova announced in a meeting that, before her term as president was over, she wanted to increase the number of women in the administration. Requests from IPFW that Wartell be allowed to stay were denied. Purdue replaced him with a 64 year-old woman, Vicky Carwein, and she assumed his duties in September 2012. After his forced retirement in 2011, Wartell filed a complaint against the university in Tippecanoe County, challenging his retirement and claiming discrimination and harassment. Purdue hired attorney John Trimble as an independent investigator. Trimble completed his investigation in February 2013 and reported to a group of Purdue Board Members, which found that no discrimination had taken place. (my words--- Mitch Daniels appointed most of them) While the state lawsuit was pending, Wartell also filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that the school had never enforced the policy on anyone who did not want to leave, including chancellors.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 11:48:23 +0000