State Plans to Fine Pacific $843,000

Investigation Alleges Pacific Withheld Employee Personnel Files

At Pacific University, a gathering storm of lawsuits threatens to break over the administration. In October, the first round of potentially damaging lawsuits and fines arrived when the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) dropped a nearly $1 million fine on Pacific University. The action was taken by BOLI as a “notice of intent to assess civil penalties” of up to $843,000 in fines based on seven specific complaints from former employees of Pacific University that their employee personnel files had been withheld.

   Moreover, the fine is just one part of a much larger picture: Included in the set of complaints to BOLI are four former professors who, in addition, have filed lawsuits against Pacific University. Those lawsuits have been filed individually over the course of 18 months—and were reported on by The Pacific Index back in October 2021.

   The lawsuits allege a variety of employee maltreatment, including wrongful termination, infliction of emotional distress, retaliation, gender and sex discrimination, and more.

   The first of these lawsuits was filed by Dr. Richard Paxton in late May 2021, following the suspension, investigation, and subsequent termination of his tenure as a Professor of Education at Pacific University. Paxton passed away last December, but the lawsuit is continuing through his estate and his wife, Kelly Paxton.

   Specifically, Paxton’s lawsuit alleges that he was threatened by then-Title IX Coordinator and VP of Human Resources Jennifer Yruegas that if he did not resign from his position at Pacific, he would face a “very public” investigation “for being racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ, and antisemitic.” Yruegas is now Dean of the College of Business and General Counsel at Pacific University.

   But Paxton refused to resign. He proclaimed his innocence, and also laid out inconsistencies between the severance pay he had been told to expect and the pay outlined on the resignation form. In turn, Paxton was suspended.

   Paxton’s lawsuit is represented by attorney Robin DesCamp, who claims that Pacific University mishandled the investigation. DesCamp claims that a “Formal Complaint” must be supplied to the person under investigation “immediately upon the investigation’s initiation.” Paxton’s requests for the Formal Complaint were denied by Pacific, and it wasn’t until two months into the investigation that Pacific sent Paxton a “Notice of Allegations” which Paxton’s lawsuit says contained “broad claims by six students about comments made by Dr. Paxton in class.” However, the lawsuit does not describe the contents of this notice in detail.

   Likewise, Pacific has not disclosed those complaints to the public, citing student privacy and protection. However, in February 2021, the American Association of University Professors described the contents of the “Notice of Allegations” in more detail in a letter to former-President Hallick which denounced the lack of due process in Paxton’s Title IX investigation.

   According to the AAUP’s letter, the complaints included one undergraduate student who alleged that Paxton had “told a story during which he had stated that ‘every person has a gender,’ . . . made ‘negative stereotyping comments,’. . . and treated the complainant ‘dismissively’ and with a ‘harsh tone . . . of voice.’”

   In addition to the undergraduate student, the AAUP’s letter reported the “Notice of Allegations” included five graduate students who alleged Paxton had made the following statements: That “Jews funded the Revolutionary War”; “that he thought it ‘weird’ that some women instructors were crying on election night 2016”; “that ‘young women today’ do not carry ‘purses like they used to’”; that “Native Americans, historically, were ‘warlike’ and ‘aggressive’; and “that Italians ‘worship’ Christopher Columbus.”

   When Paxton was finally officially fired following a faculty committee hearing in August 2021, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that the University Personnel Committee’s “Notification of Dismissal” sent to Paxton included the statement, “(y)our comments were not accidental or isolated — the facts demonstrate a pattern of misconduct, and you had been warned that such statements and sentiments are inappropriate and you were instructed to refrain from such conduct.”

   Past performance reports, Zoom recordings of the alleged problematic comments, and the results of the Title IX investigation could be instrumental in determining the due process of the investigation, patterns of past misconduct, and context of the student complaints. However, Pacific claims these documents are protected from disclosure under FERPA (student rights to privacy) and attorney-client privilege—and it is this very refusal to share information that has placed Pacific University in hot water. According to BOLI’s website, state law requires employers to provide former employees with access to their personnel records upon request, including performance reviews, notes pertaining to personnel actions, notices of termination, and disciplinary actions and records of verbal and written warnings. According to the Forest Grove News-Times, Pacific does not plan to disclose further personnel files to BOLI unless ordered to do so by a court of law.

   But documentation and due process are not the only elements in question in Paxton’s lawsuit; the whole process swirls with as many subplots as a TV drama, with personalities and personal lives pushing onto the stage as well.  From the plaintiff’s perspective, DesCamp describes a pattern of behavior by the university’s Yruegas wherein she verbally berated, misled, and refused to meet with the professors in question. Paxton’s lawsuit alleges that during the call when Paxton was informed of his suspension, “Ms. Yruegas berated and bullied Dr. Paxton, in an extremely angry and snide tone, and accused him of violating the civil rights of his students.”

   These behaviors also appear consistently in the lawsuits against Pacific by Dr. David Scholnick, and Raphael Hamilton—both represented by attorney Robin DesCamp. Notably, they also appear in the lawsuit filed by Fallon Hughes, represented by attorney Daniel Snyder.

   On the flip side, Yruegas is far from the only character of interest in this story. Where Yruegas allegedly has presented an overbearing style, plaintiff attorney DesCamp has perhaps displayed a disproportionate zeal for profit and revenge.

   A recent post on DesCamp’s LinkedIn page replies to an article with the headline “Labor Law: A white man awarded $10 million in damages is a reminder that employers can’t discriminate in the name of diversity.” As a comment on October 26 of this year, DesCamp wrote, “$10 million in punitive damages sounds great. Imagine how much I’ll get when I prove not just discrimination, but intentional fabrication of allegations against employees and intentional misrepresentation of investigation findings? Insurance won’t pay for that, so Pacific University’s endowment is going to be toast.”

   Each of DesCamp’s three lawsuits seek damages and fees of between $1.3 and $1.75 million. Those large settlements could be huge pay-days for DesCamp. But the apparent glee with which she seems to take from the potential harm to Pacific’s endowment is unsettling: Her comments seem to indicate a desire to undercut the health and wellbeing of the university and its students rather than simply seeking a sense of justice for her clients.

   Paxton’s lawsuit is set to go to trial before a 12-person jury on December 6. As for the BOLI fines, OPB reports that Pacific plans to begin settlement discussions with the seven former Pacific employees, and that Pacific has until November 7 to request a hearing to contest the allegations before an administrative law judge.

   Stay tuned for updates on this story from The Pacific Index. — Lane Johnson