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NKU faculty senate votes to censure university gag order in Jane Doe case; judge already dismissed it


Note: The NKyTribune has been following the Jane Doe rape case and objected in federal court to a gag order by the university on all parties involved; in a strongly worded judgment, Judge William Bertlesman denied the gag order. The Professional Concerns Committee of the Faculty Senate has been discussing taking a position on the gag order for several months, delaying a response at the request of the administration and following a personal meeting with President Mearns. A Northerner newspaper story by Managing Editor McKenzie Manley, provides some insight into the process. This report is by MacKenzie (from the Northerner) and the Tribune staff

The faculty senate discussed again at its January meeting a resolution objecting the university’s gag order motion in the Jane Doe rape case being heard in federal court.

A vote on the resolution was finally scheduled for yesterday and the Faculty Senate approved this resolution, according to chair Ken Katlin:

Be it resolved that the Faculty Senate of Northern Kentucky University respectfully disagrees with the University’s efforts to obtain a gag order to prohibit our student Jane Doe from talking with reporters about the university’s response to her campus sexual assault and recommends that the University, in the future, not seek to prohibit students from talking with the media about matters having to do with the University and its policies.

That vote will be reflected in the Minutes from yesterday’s meeting, which will be adopted and published at the next Senate meeting.

Katkin, a Chase Law professor and chair of the committee, told the Northerner that when he first heard of the case he looked into the legal documents regarding it as well as the university’s own documents. He believed that there wasn’t a good reason for the gag order to be requested.

Photo by Mackenzie Manley, Northerner Managing Editor

The resolution was voted upon by the Faculty Senate as a whole.

Last August, in response to a student filing a lawsuit against NKU for mishandling a sexual assault case, the university issued a request for a gag order to be placed on all individuals involved in the case.
 
The sexual assault case dates back to 2013 when Jane Doe, as identified in the case, said she was raped by a fellow student in her dorm room.

“The judge said ‘No.’ Not only did he say no, but he said ‘No. That’s ridiculous,’” said Ken Katkin, chair of the PCC. “He thought it was so ridiculous that he made the university pay for the other side’s legal fees for aspects of that.”

NKU subsequently withdrew the request when the court agreed to protect the confidentiality of the student records involved.

“When the student filed a lawsuit at federal court and the university sought the gag order against the student — I read about it in the newspaper and other faculty members did too,” Katkin told the Northerner.  “It wasn’t something the university was talking to faculty about, and maybe they didn’t need to — it’s not necessarily the faculty’s job to be involved in the university’s ligation —

“But when we read that they sought a gag order against a student, I thought it was wrong, and other people on the PCC sent me emails saying, ‘What’s going on here?’”

The governing documents the committee worked with to create the resolution were the NKU Values and Ethical Responsibilities Statement, the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities, and NKU’s ‘Fuel the Flame’ Mission Statement, the Northerner reported.
 
Katkin told the Northerner that both he and the committee found that the university contradicted ideas of freedom of speech both on and off campus as well as upholding transparency and accountability found in these documents through their actions.
 
Joan Gates, NKU’s vice president of legal affairs and general counsel, and President Geoffrey Mearns both spoke to the committee last fall in order to share the university’s perspective. After months of contemplation, the committee voted in November to budget the resolution for January’s Faculty Senate meeting.

Katkin said this was due to the committee not wanting to bury the resolution in the wake of exams and the holiday season, given the severity of the issue.

Katkin estimated that the resolution passed with about an 80 percent majority within the committee by a voice vote. The Faculty Senate discussed the resolution in length in January and tabled it for February’s meeting.

He said the opposition to the resolution stems from not wanting to be confrontational.

“The (administration) been pretty open with senate concerns,” Katkin said. “Some of the top executives seem to think ‘Oh, we don’t want to be churlish or create friction or tension. If we have this good relationship with them, where they do address our concerns, why would we want to do something sort of confrontational or antagonistic when it’s an outlying thing?’”

Though Katkin is a lawyer, the senate as a whole is not. Despite this, he said that the senate and its subsequent committees have the right to interpret the university’s governing documents. The resolution does not address anything but the university’s documents.
 
“It is symbolic, but I would also say that it’s meaningful. I wouldn’t use the word symbolic in a disappearing way here,” Katkin told the Northerner. “It’s so rare for the faculty to speak out on these kinds of issues. We are speaking about it in the context of it being an ethical issue. I think that when we speak it would be respected.”

The NKU Values and Ethical Responsibilities Statement, which was amended by the Board of Regents in May 2016, says that community members are expected to “promote academic freedom, including the freedom to discuss relevant matters in the classroom, with fellow NKU community members and with the public.”

The Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities states that students have the right to enjoy freedom of speech both on and off campus.

The administration’s gag order motion created a direct tension to these ideals, according to the resolution created by the PCC.

“Our ethical values say they should be able to do that, because how can we know if our policies are good unless we let people talk about them?” Katkin asked. “Seeking a gag order seems directly opposite of that. To say to a student ‘Well, we don’t want you out there talking to the public about how the university handled it when you were the victim of a sexual assault.’”

The ‘Fuel the Flame’ mission statement states that their vision includes holding the university accountable to the public and those who are invested in the campus community’s future.

The resolution questions if the suppression of public discussion regarding a sexual assault case holds the university accountable to both the public and those who invest in NKU’s future.

The mission statement also states that it values student-centered learning; the resolution questions if the efforts to silence ‘Jane Doe’ upholds this sentiment.

“A student who was raped on campus and reported it and was not satisfied by the response; she should be able to talk about how she was not satisfied by the response,” Katkin said. “I can’t see any counter argument there. I keep coming back to that.”
 


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