"Your honor," he commenced. "The plaintiff was given a fair hearing under the rules of Belmont University. She was given due process. Despite the fact that she forged many evaluation forms causing untold harm to two young faculty persons, the university made every effort to treat her with fairness and consideration." He continued for some time in the same vein, constantly and consistently referring to the plaintiff as a forger—a criminal.
Gleefully, Murrain reflected, in court, we attorneys can say anything, or most anything, we want to. We do not have to operate under the constraints imposed on the rest of the populace and preface a charge with the word alleged. Truth is not required of us either, although most judges attempt to keep the elocution within the bounds of propriety.
Another check in the system is the presence of the opposing attorney who is supposed to function to limit any freewheeling antics of his colleague by appealing to the judge.
But Al did not object to Simon's presentation. He felt confident that the judge would rule on the law, not on the performance. Besides, he rather enjoyed watching and listening to Simon's kind of theater.
Following the hearing, the wait began. How would the judge decide? When would the judge decide?
Even though the hearing committee at Belmont had made its report and recommendation to terminate, the actual termination letter had not yet been sent. From the time she was accused, Diana had found life at work to be difficult. As a plaintiff, in a lawsuit against Belmont, it was nearly impossible.
Nearly, that is, because her students never wavered in their efforts to encourage and help her. It was during this wait that factual information was obtained concerning a dean at Belmont who had falsified a faculty promotion sheet. The occurrence had been rumored, but now the players were known. Al Garret had talked to the principals of the event and obtained two affidavits attesting to the misconduct and subsequent lack of punishment awarded the dean who was still employed at the university. The man had suffered no loss of rank or pay for his transgression. These affidavits were added to the pile of papers already on file with the judge.
Early in June, the Opinion and Order of the judge arrived. Al Garret's third charge had been thrown out by the judge who wrote that the law cited did not apply to Belmont University. The other three charges were sustained.
On charge number four, relating to the open meeting law, the judge wrote in part: "To permit this hearing panel to operate outside the Open Meeting Law would be to enable the university to take round-about steps to avoid its public duty."
He continued by describing the hearing panel as resembling, "....the type of secret activities the Open Meeting Law seeks to prevent...." and suggested that if the panel had considered any area to be extremely sensitive, it could have gone into executive session. Even this he qualified—asserting that it was subject to the plaintiff's right to a public hearing.