One of the two multimillion-dollar lawsuits against Emporia State University filed by former employees on accusations of racism and retaliation has been dismissed.
A federal jury dismissed all ESU administrators named in former professor Melvin Hale’s lawsuit in a ruling Monday. The jury also singled out Provost David Cordle, granting a judgment against Hale’s First Amendment retaliation claim.
On top of that, instead of paying $10 million to Hale as he had requested, university administrators can now recover legal costs from Hale.
Both Hale and his wife, Angelica, were one-time employees in the School of Library and Information Management, with Melvin Hale serving as a professor and Angelica Hale as an assistant to former dean Gwen Alexander. The couple says their concerns with the university started when they found a racial epithet on a notebook in April 2015, and both filed separate $10 million lawsuits in 2016 claiming retaliation for reporting racial discrimination and for protesting racism. Melvin Hale also contends ESU, Alexander, Cordle and former university president Jackie Vietti refused to renew his contract and published false and misleading information about him, although Alexander was not part of this lawsuit when it went to trial last week.
A bench trial was held in Angelica Hale’s case in January, and prospective findings of fact have been filed with the court but no decision has been released and there is now no timetable for a decision to be announced. The same judge that presided over Melvin Hale’s trial also heard Angelica Hale’s bench trial.
KVOE News has reached out to Melvin Hale via social media for comment. In a formal statement, the university says it is “pleased with the outcome and is grateful to the judge, jury and to the attorneys from the Kansas Attorney General’s Office who have invested time and energy on this case. ESU is committed to, and is continually focused on, creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for all.”
