Attorneys in the defamation lawsuit brought against Ohio University by a former engineering faculty member filed their post-trial briefs with the Ohio Court of Claims yesterday.
Bhavin Mehta, a former nontenure track faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, sued OU for defamation in response to a report released by then-Provost Kathy Krendl in May 2006 that claimed several faculty members either ignored or supported academic fraud.
The Meyer-Bloemer report, assessing plagiarism in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, further contended rampant and flagrant plagiarism had occurred in the department's graduate program for more than 20 years.
The post-trial briefs, which essentially sum up each attorney's views on the case and provide legal justification for their opinions, precede oral closing arguments set for March 20.
Fred Gittes, Mehta's counsel, disputes the charges outlined in the report, and his brief is partly concerned with Krendl's own unease at the incendiary language used by the authors.
Krendl knew Hugh Bloemer and Gary Meyer were not qualified to investigate accusations of plagiarism ' no less in the field of engineering ' and Meyer had never actually taught a course or mentored a graduate student, Gittes said.
She knew that report was bunk
Gittes said. The notes (from Krendl to the report's authors) show there was almost no aspect of that report that she didn't want to change Gittes said.
The Ohio Attorney General's office defended the report, citing the immunity afforded to opinions ' in this case, the opinions of Meyer and Bloemer ' under the Ohio Constitution.
The Meyer-Bloemer report is the only writing with which Dr. Mehta quarrels and it is unquestionably constitutionally protected opinion
according to the brief prepared by Assistant Attorney General Randall Knutti.
The brief filed by the Ohio State Attorney General's office was nine pages in length; Gittes' was 54.
Frankly
there was so much evidence about just how totally baseless the statements in that report
and by Irwin
were about Mehta
Gittes said. That's one of the reasons it's so long.
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