Complaint filed in lawsuit involving former Ohio Northern prof who allegedly lost job over anti-DEI stance

On Jan. 23, America First Legal Foundation filed a verified second amended complaint in a lawsuit involving Dr. Scott Gerber, a former Ohio Northern University professor known for his stance against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) who is suing the school after being unjustly fired, as he claimed. 

The complaint described Gerber as a “libertarian, an opponent of racial, gender, and ethnic preferences in hiring, and an expert on the jurisprudence of Justice Clarence Thomas,” all of which the lawsuit claimed “puts Dr. Gerber dramatically out of step with the politics of academia generally and defendant Ohio Northern University in particular.”

The complaint alleged that, despite his status as a tenured professor, “Ohio Northern University and certain of its employees decided to terminate Dr. Gerber’s employment, motivated by a desire to retaliate against him based on his unpopular views and his raising concerns about illegal conduct–including racially discriminatory hiring–at the University.”

[RELATED: Constitutional Law prof says he was escorted away from class by security after expressing concerns about DEI]

The complaint stated that the case began “[o]n April 14, 2023, [when] school security–with support from armed police officers from Ada, Ohio–removed Dr. Gerber from his classroom in the presence of students. They escorted him to the office of Dean Charles H. Rose III, a defendant in this case, who told Dr. Gerber that he must either resign or face termination proceedings. After Dr. Gerber refused to resign, the University commenced termination proceedings against him,” the complaint states.

It continued: “Neither the University nor any of its employees told Dr. Gerber what he was accused of having done, notwithstanding his contractual right to be informed with ‘reasonable particularity’ of the accusations against him. When the hearing eventually went forward, the University ambushed Dr. Gerber with new accusations, denied Dr. Gerber his contractual right to confront the witnesses against him, and made Dr. Gerber subject to a sham hearing with a predetermined outcome.”

America First Legal Foundation stated that, during these events, the school “defamed” Gerber, sending a press release “falsely labeling Dr. Gerber a threat to the physical safety of faculty, staff, and students,” which was followed by the University president Melissa Baumann “publish[ing] this defamatory characterization by email to third parties.” These actions, “along with the manner in which Dr. Gerber was taken from his classroom, falsely published to the world that Dr. Gerber presented a safety threat,” according to the complaint. 

The complaint then related that Ohio Northern “terminated Dr. Gerber without cause, in breach of his employment contract” and that Gerber “filed this lawsuit in hopes of restoring his reputation, regaining his employment, securing compensation for the harm done to him, and setting a precedent that will stop colleges and universities from targeting professors who ‘deign to think for themselves.’”

Dean Rose allegedly told Gerber that his punishment was “due to an alleged lack of ‘collegiality,’ though he declined to provide specifics,” according to America First Legal Foundation. 

After Gerber sued Ohio Northern, the school was ordered to give specific reasons for why it fired Gerber, but the school did not “provide ‘copies of all letters of concern or complaints’ relating to the proposed grounds for dismissal,” nor did the information provided “specify with ‘reasonable particularity’ the grounds for dismissal.” 

America First Legal Foundation called these events “an escalation in the culture war” and said that “[e]ven tenured professors will no longer be tolerated and will be terminated if they refuse to bend the knee to the current woke ideology,” as written on the organization’s website.

“America First Legal is proud to represent Dr. Gerber and fight this unlawful termination,” it added. 

[RELATED: Law prof and DEI critic stripped of teaching amid employment proceedings]

In May 2023, Gerber published a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “DEI Brings Kafka to My Law School,” in reference to the Franz Kafka novel “The Trial,” which focuses on the character of Josef K., who is accused of a crime and then caught in a bureaucratic nightmare, “with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader,” as Gerber wrote. 

Gerber stated that “as I learned as I was marched out of my classroom by men in uniform, dissenting from DEI can turn anyone into Josef K.”

Gerber’s attorney Robert Shibley previously told Campus Reform: “From the beginning, Dr. Gerber has maintained that he has done nothing to warrant his removal as a tenured professor, and that the charges against him were based on his expression of legitimate concerns and opinions that are protected by both whistleblower law and academic freedom.”

Campus Reform reached out to Ohio Northern and Dr. Scott Gerber for comment. The article will be updated accordingly.