By: Out of the Box

Out of the Box
Fri, 24 Oct 2014 20:58:16 +0000

Andy--read their court submission. They are asking the court to throw out the lawsuit, and in doing so responding point by point to the things that Waters submitted in his suit. Their original assertion in the firing is that Waters knew or ought to have known about the sexualized culture in the band. Waters' claim has been that he didn't know and anyway he was working to change it. This newest evidence simply underlines the original contention of the University that he knew, as well as their reason for the firing, which is that he "was not forthcoming" during the Title IX investigation. Clearly he knew more than he admitted to them at that time, including incidents and events that occurred during his official time as head. Further, some of the submissions by students and alums--in attempting to demonstrate his change efforts suggest that he knew of or had seen various items that he claimed not to have seen (such as revised versions of the song book). The Waters suit (you might want to read that as well) makes some pretty wide-ranging accusations (suggesting that a deal was made to fire Waters in exchange for an agreement with federal Title IX investigators, internal tensions between the band and music department and so on), which I understand is a common tactic when the case is weak, in order to confuse issues. The University document, as I said before, offers a point by point denial. This is pretty much how the legal system works. And if it looks like one side or the other is ready to blink, their lawyers are probably having conversation as well. I don't know that I see that happening in this case. The alums aren't going to contribute to his legal fund forever, and as he was only making $150,000/year anyway, unless his wife has a pretty decent income, he's going to have to start looking for a job real soon. Time is on the side of the University. And the public is already tired of it and moving on.