Fired Ave Maria Law Prof Gets Tenure in Whistle-Blower Settlement, Lawyer Says
A much-watched whistle-blower lawsuit by three former faculty members at Ave Maria School of Law is now concluded without ever having the central legal issue publicly addressed.
A settlement by Stephen Safranek ends the Michigan state-court case, since the two other plaintiffs settled earlier this year according to the Naples Daily News.
Attorney Deborah Gordon, who represents Safranek, tells the newspaper his tenure was restored under the settlement, which included an unspecified amount of money.
The law school declined to comment.
The litigation filed by the three in 2007 asserted claims of wrongful discharge, breach of contract and tortious interference with advantagious business relationships. Observers were waiting to see what the court made of a constitutional issue in the Washtenaw County Circuit Court case—whether, as a religious institution, Ave Maria could successfully claim a ministerial exception to workplace standards that would apply in a secular setting, the newspaper notes.
The professors had contended in their complaint that they were fired after they “reported or were about to report violations or suspected violations of state and federal laws, regulations, and rules governing the independence of the corporate form and breach (of) fiduciary duty/conflict of interest” to the state attorney general, unspecified law enforcement agencies and the American Bar Association.
Dean Bernard Dobranski told the ABA Journal in 2007 that “a small group of disgruntled faculty members who don’t want to see the law school relocate” had magnified academic freedom and governance issues.
Ave Maria at that time was located in Michigan but has since moved to Florida.
