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Deputy GC Doug Park’s lack of foresight costs UO another $425K

Rich Read of the Oregonian had a long series of stories on former Interim GC Doug Park’s decision to get a copy of Jane Doe’s confidential counseling records while Doe was suing UO over the alleged basketball gang rape. Park’s decision was the basis for changes in state and federal law and UO policy, prompted by, among others, UO professor Jennifer Freyd, and it was the primary reason UO paid $800K  to settle Doe’s case against UO. Josephine Woolington had this quote from Park in the RG, here:

“If I could go back in retrospect, I would have sent (the student’s attorneys) a letter or email back, asking, ‘Is this really what you mean?’ ” Park said.

That $800K wasn’t the end of it. Today, Tran Nguyen reports in the Daily Emerald that UO has settled with the two counseling center employees who blew the whistle on Park and the counseling center’s director Shelly Kerr:

The University of Oregon settled a lawsuit with two former health center whistleblowers for the amount of $425,000 in total Sunday. The whistleblowers, two employees at the University Counseling and Testing Center, claimed the university accessed the counseling records of “Jane Doe”—a student allegedly raped by UO basketball players—without her consent in 2014.

Jennifer Morlok and Karen Stokes filed their lawsuit in November 2015 against four administrators at the U.S. District Court in Eugene. Stokes was executive assistant in the Counseling Center; Morlok was Jane Doe’s therapist after the alleged assault. When they spoke out against the university, Stokes claimed she was being “forced to leave her position” by UO administration in March 2015, and Morlok faced a “hostile working environment” that made her resign October 2015, according to the lawsuit.

UO denied any wrongdoing in retrieving the counseling records. In a statement to the Oregonian, UO spokesman Tobin Klinger said the settlement “does allow all parties to move forward and avoid years of expensive litigation.” …

Andrew Theen has more in the Oregonian here.

The Oregon State Bar declined to go after Park for an ethics violation, and an admission of wrongdoing would presumably reopen that. Park is still employed by UO, as “Deputy General Counsel”, a job that was created for him after he did not get the permanent GC job. He’s paid the same GC’s salary of ~205K$ that he got before the demotion, however.

Meanwhile the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners has not yet posted their final decision about their ethics investigation of Shelly Kerr. They initially proposed a $5K fine and some re-education.

One Comment

  1. Licensed in Oregon 07/20/2016

    The RG says Park cost UO $625,000 on this one. That includes the $200,000 for his attorneys.

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