University filed federal lawsuit against Gerber after he filed state lawsuit
A libertarian professor abruptly removed from campus by Ohio Northern University after he criticized DEI has reached a settlement with his employer.
The settlement, filed last week in an Ohio county court, ends a multi-year battle between Scott Gerber and ONU – which recently included a federal counter-suit filed against the professor.
A judge previously ruled that the case could proceed to jury trial.
The university agreed to “reinstate [Gerber] to his former position and faculty rank.” The professor, as part of the agreement, “will deliver his retirement letter immediately ending his employment.”
The school said Gerber (pictured) never was a “public safety risk” or “acted with moral turpitude.”
Gerber was abruptly “removed from his classroom by school security officers” following an investigation into his conduct, The Fix previously reported in 2023.
As laid out in a Wall Street Journal essay, Gerber said he “was immediately barred from teaching, banished from campus, and told that if I didn’t sign a separation agreement and release of claims by April 21, [2023] ONU would commence dismissal proceedings against me.”
As The Fix reported at the time:
Just a few days before he was booted from campus, Gerber authored an op-ed in The Hill defending U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
In the weeks prior to his removal, Gerber gave a television interview and published two op-eds in which he “criticized DEI programs that discriminate against white men in the name of ‘racial and social justice’ and for being indifferent to the type of diversity higher education should value most: viewpoint diversity,” he wrote in the Journal.
Gerber also agreed as part of the settlement to not publish a memoir titled “Cancelled.”
Ohio Northern agreed to drop a federal lawsuit it filed against the professor – which had drawn criticism from legal experts.
Experts say lawsuit meant to shut Gerber up
The now defunct federal lawsuit accused Gerber of having “ulterior purposes” including “exercising personal vendettas against Plaintiffs and/or unleashing political retribution upon Plaintiffs,” referring to university officials.
The university had not responded to multiple requests for comment from The Fix about the lawsuit in the past month.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has been supporting Gerber’s case, criticized the university’s federal suit. “ONU’s lawsuit rests on Gerber’s protected speech and is a classic example of abusing the legal system to silence your critics,” attorney Zach Greenberg told The Fix via email, prior to the settlement announcement.
“It is not a valid claim and is certainly retaliatory for Gerber’s success against ONU in state court,” he said.
In a related article, Greenberg called the federal lawsuit a “classic example of abusing the legal system to silence your critics.”
Legal expert John Banzhaf similarly criticized the lawsuit, saying it seemed like it was “drafted by a layperson and not an attorney. In my judgement, the pleading is at best unusual.”
The George Washington University professor said, “the federal lawsuit seems to be a collateral (indirect) attack on the state lawsuit.”
Commenting further he said, “there seems to be no reason to make a separate federal case out of what is basically a state proceeding, which is why such a collateral indirect attack is strongly disfavored.”
“The federal judge, therefore, is likely to dismiss the federal lawsuit, thereby permitting the state court judge to handle what is basically a state matter,” he said.
MORE: Check out the Campus Cancel Culture Database
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Professor Scott Gerber conducts an interview on YouTube; Laurence Jarvik/YouTube
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