Has Hazo Carter gone soft on retaliation?

On Tuesday, the WVSU Free Press reposted a story in the June 23 edition of The West Virginia Record concerning a trial date in the lawsuit Katara Sowell filed against the West Virginia State University Research and Development Corporation. According to the article, Sowell was let go as a human resources assistant because of a "lack of funding."

However, Sowell alleges her dismissal from RDC was politically motiviated. Specifically, Sowell alleges RDC officials retaliated against her after she expressed concerns about harassment and financial mismanagement to higher ups, including WVSU President Hazo W. Carter Jr. who is also president of RDC's board of directors.

The allegation that Carter took no action on Sowell's concerns is most shocking since he has spoken out against retaliation. In fact, here is what State's longest serving president had to say about retaliation during a public forum held Nov. 30, 2006 on the university's strategic plan.

"We will not tolerate retaliation. If there is ever any of that kind of threat, you can come to one of us."

Suit against WVSURDC set for April

After being bounced between state and federal courts, a lawsuit filed by a former employee of the research division of West Virginia State University is slated for trial in the spring.

On June 11, a scheduling conference was held in Kanawha Circuit Court in the case of Katara Sowell v. West Virginia State University Research and Development Corporation. In November, Sowell brought suit against the Corporation alleging both its human resources director, Shelvy Campbell, and A. Joseph Kusimo, director of the university's NASA program, created a hostile work environment during her six months there.

Sowell's suit, court records show, also alleges the Corporation retaliated against her after she addressed her concerns to higher ups including university President Hazo W. Carter Jr., who is also president of the Corporation's board of directors. She claims that shortly thereafter her job was cut because of "a lack of funding."

On March 24, the case was transferred to U. S. District Court because of federal wage and hour issues Sowell raised. However, her attorney, Scott Kaminski, asked the case be remanded back to state court because the "Plaintiff's perceived pursuit of a federal claim was the sole basis for federal jurisdiction in this matter."

Court records show Judge Joseph Goodwin granted Kaminski's motion on May 23.

In her scheduling order, Kanawha Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey Walker set Jan. 9, 2009 for the completion of discovery. Should the parties fail to mediate the dispute before the pretrial conference on April 9, 2009, then trial will begin 11 days later at 9 a.m

For more on this story, go to The West Virginia Record

Photos: East Hall (top left), located on the lower end of campus, is the home of State's Research and Development Corporation. Katara Sowell, a former RDC employee, filed a lawsuit against not only the RDC, but also its human resources director Shelvy Campbell and Joseph Kusimo (pictured above), who works for WVSU's NASA program, for creating a hostile work environment during her employment there. The case is slated for trial in April 2009.

Obama and McCain are both wrong on foreign policy

by Sheldon Richman

Barack Obama’s call for talks with “our enemies” is shaping up as a major bone of contention between him and John McCain in the presidential campaign. As usual, both the Democrat and the Republican get it wrong.

Obama says he would sit down with so-called adversaries such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Cuban President Raul Castro, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to talk out their differences. Although somewhat vague, he emphasizes that such talks should be held with few conditions. As his website puts it, “Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe. He will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table, and that he is willing to lead.”

McCain has slammed Obama, arguing that his position shows his “inexperience and reckless judgment.”

How can both be wrong?

For more on this commentary, go to The Future of Freedom Foundation.

NBC - TASS, American style

Did NBC (and many other mainstream media outlets) provide a pro-Bush, pro-war slant to news coverage leading up to the invasion of Iraq? "Yes, indeedy," says best-selling author, attorney and Salon contributor Glenn Greenwald.

"Don't Talk to the Police"

Virginia Beach, Va. - On March 14, Regent University Law Professor James Duane gave a presentation to the university's chapter of the Federalist Society titled "In Praise of the Fifth Amendment: Why No Criminal Suspect Should Ever Talk to the Police." Whether you're a student of constitutional law, or someone who's a suspect in a criminal investigation, Prof. Duane's talk is an excellent primer on the much maligned Fifth Amendment.

E. Michigan University levied largest fine ever for Clery Act violation

Ypsilanti, Mich. — Eastern Michigan University will pay $350,000 in federal fines for failing to disclose crime information in violation of the Clery Act, the largest such fine ever.

"We're pleased to have arrived at an agreement with the DOE and we appreciate their recognition of the progress and improvements that EMU has made during the past year in regards to Clery Act Compliance," said university provost and executive vice president Don Loppnow in a press release issued Friday.

The $350,000 is slightly less than the original $357,500 fine proposed by the DOE in a Dec. 14 letter to the university. Within the letter, the DOE called the university's conduct an "egregious violation, which endangered the entire EMU campus community."

For more on this article, go to The Student Press Law Center

WVU-P prof to become WVSC&TC prez

This article originally appeared in the June 6 edition of the Charleston Gazette, and is reprinted with permission.

By Veronica Nett, Staff writer

Joseph L. Badgley, a dean and professor at West Virginia University-Parkersburg, was selected Thursday as West Virginia State Community and Technical College's next president.

The school's Board of Governors appointed Badgley, an education professor and executive dean of academic affairs at WVU-P.

Board members met behind closed doors for nearly two hours Thursday afternoon to discuss the appointment.

Badgley will replace Erwin Griffin, who left the community college in 2006 to accept a position as president of Halifax Community College in North Carolina. Ron Bartely had served as interim president but left the college to accept a position as president of Northeastern Technical College in South Carolina.

The current interim president is Kathy D'Antoni, vice-chancellor of West Virginia's community and technical college system. She urged board members Thursday to continue to bridge the gap between the community college and the university.

She also thanked the board for the opportunity to serve as interim president. "I've truly enjoyed my stay here," she said.

Badgley brings 37 years of academic experience to the community college. He has served as academic dean at WVU-P since 2000, and has also served as interim president of the Parkersburg school.

He has a bachelor's degree in education from Glenville State College and master's and doctorate degrees from West Virginia University.

The board will negotiate Badgley's salary at a later date.

Board members also approved WVSU President Hazo W. Carter's four-year evaluation and a 3 percent pay increase to the president's salary. Board members discussed the review and the pay increase in executive session.

Mike Nifong lives!

by Robert Shibley

As a Duke alumnus twice over (undergraduate and law), I watched with horror the events that unfolded in the infamous Duke Lacrosse/Mike Nifong case. While the prime "bad actors" in the case were clearly (now disbarred) former prosecutor Nifong and the false accuser, Crystal Mangum, Duke's disregard for and even attacks on its students' rights to due process in the case also gave me plenty of reasons to tell Duke that they won't be getting a donation from me next time they call. (Incidentally, just about every aspect of the case has been ably documented by Professor KC Johnson in both his Durham-in-Wonderland blog and his book with the National Journal's Stuart Taylor, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.)

One major upshot of the fiasco, however, would seem to be Duke students' increased awareness of the crucial importance of due process and fair procedure, both in the law and on campus. And unfortunately, it looks as though Duke has been headed in the wrong direction on these issues for a number of years. In a series of columns in Duke's Chronicle student newspaper last fall, student Elliott Wolf does yeoman's work in tracing the evolution (perhaps devolution would be a better word) of Duke's judicial code over the last decade or so. Amazingly, despite the fact that while I was at Duke, the student judicial board was widely considered a total joke and a kangaroo court, it turns out that I attended Duke during what was, comparatively speaking, a golden age of justice and fair procedures

To read more of Shibley's comments on due process at Duke University, go to The Torch, the blog of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Property rights: The Achilles Heel for GOP electoral success in November

by Steve Greenhut

One of the guilty pleasures I expect to partake of later this year is watching the Democratic electoral tsunami obliterate Republicans in the November election. It's not because I often agree with Democrats, who manage to get almost everything wrong, but nothing but a disaster can shake any sense into a GOP that, as one prominent Republican told me, has "engaged in a wholesale abandonment of its limited-government principles."

The California GOP can't figure out its irrelevance, and the Republican governor insists that he is protecting the "little guy" by taxing, borrowing and spending on an even grander scale than his Democratic predecessor. GOP legislators are busy sending out hit pieces in the primary, swearing to do everything short of setting up machine-gun turrets on the Southern border to keep out illegal immigrants, even though no legislative candidate will have any influence whatsoever on immigration policy.

But for all this cluelessness and pandering, the state GOP and its allies in the business community have been unable to unite behind a core pro-freedom position – one that's popular among Californians of all parties and all ethnic and demographic groups. It's the issue of property rights and, in particular, the narrower matter of eminent-domain reform.

For more on this op/ed piece, go to The Orange County Register

Why recessions are important

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.

We all want to live well and no one wants their living standard to decline. That makes sense, right? It's just the way we are made.

What does not make any sense is the strange article of faith that has descended over Washington, DC, that says that no prices must ever be permitted to decline due to recessionary pressures. All resources in the national treasury, every conceivable monetary manipulation, all efforts of every regulatory body must be marshaled toward the great national goal of re-pumping the economy, which must never ever be permitted to fall even a tiny bit.

Welcome to the War on Recession, which is being pursued with the same vehemence and folly as the War on Terror, and will likely prove just as spectacularly destructive of its own aims as well as liberty itself. Maybe we need songs, banners, and little ribbon pins and car magnets too.

For more on this commentary, go to LewRockwell.com