University of Oregon General Counsel, Melinda Grier, has been at the center of swirling controversy regarding Mike Bellotti, the Ducks departing athletic director. There has been uproar regarding both the terms of Bellotti's compensation deal and the school's lack of transparency regarding the contracts. There would be nothing particularly interesting about this - to me at least - but for the most recent turn of events. We learn today that UO President Richard Lariviere "reassigned" Grier to the law school. She will teach classes there as an instructor, through June 2011, after which her contract will not be renewed.
I can't imagine folks at the law school can be too pleased about this. I'm not sure which part is most disturbing: that the President considers the law school a site for reassignment of non-academic university employees; that the President considers the law school a site for reassignment of employees who aren't working out; or that the President thinks it's appropriate to reassign her from the GC position to a law school teaching slot. I wonder if the faculty, or even the dean, was consulted about this reassignment.
Meanwhile, Dean Margie Paris isn't totally on the sidelines. She's been asked to chair the search for Grier's replacement as GC. That's service for you - the law school is a one-stop-shop for solving the university's lawyer problems. And all of this brought to you by the same institution that refused to defend one of its law professors in a lawsuit over her scholarship!
Sounds to me like UO ought to do for Grier what schools do for coaches all the time: buy out the rest of her contract.
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