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Volume CXXXIII, Number 17 |
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Trial pits student against College, deans
JAMES FISHER
ORIENT STAFF
A Bowdoin student is suing the College in federal court
for violating his civil rights and breaching a contract in a 1999 Judicial
Board case which led to his expulsion.
The student, George C. W. Goodman '00, names as defendants
the President and trustees of the College, as well as President Emeritus
Robert Edwards, Dean of Student Affairs Craig Bradley, Director of Residential
Life Robert Graves, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Mya Mangawang, and
former Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Karen Tilbor. The trial is being
conducted before a jury in the Portland courtroom of U.S. District Judge
Gene Carter.
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| The Edward T. Gignoux courthouse building in Portland, where Goodman v. Bowdoin is being tried. (James Fisher, Bowdoin Orient) |
Edwards, Tilbor, Mangawang and Bradley could not be reached
for comment. Graves declined to discuss the case. James Kilbreth and Jackie
Rider, of Verrill & Dana, a Portland law firm, are representing Bowdoin.
Goodman is represented by Mark Furey, a Portland lawyer, and Collette
Goodman, his mother, also a lawyer.
In March 1999, Goodman threw a snowball at the college shuttle
as it drove down College Street. He and the shuttle driver, Namsoo Lee
'01, began fighting, and Lee was treated that night at Parkview Hospital
for a broken nose.
On April 13, 1999, the J-Board held a hearing, concluded
that Goodman alone was at fault, and recommended that he be "immediately
and permanently expelled", said Scott Hood, Bowdoin's director of
communications. Dean Bradley, after receiving the J-Board's recommendation,
passed on to the Administrative Committee a recommendation that Goodman
be indefinitely suspended, with the opportunity to reapply to Bowdoin
later. The Administrative Committee did expel Goodman, but allowed him
to complete the spring semester.
Goodman reapplied to Bowdoin for admission in the fall of
2001, two years after his expulsion, and was accepted. He enrolled in
classes last semester, and is currently on a leave of absence from the
College. Lee returned to Bowdoin this semester after serving two years
in the South
Korean military. He declined to be interviewed for this article.
Goodman's original suit, filed in May 2000, claimed several
different grievances. Two of these alleged that Bowdoin had violated his
civil rights at the J-Board hearing by unfairly relying on race-based
explanations of his behavior. Goodman's complaint noted that Lee is "Asian
and a citizen of Korea," and Goodman claimed the J-Board discriminated
against him because he is white. The suit being heard this week contains
an additional civil rights complaint, based on a Maine human rights law.
In court yesterday, Carter granted a motion by Kilbreth,
Bowdoin's counsel, to dismiss the three civil rights charges. He told
the court that no jury could find "direct or circumstantial evidence
of racial animus" on Bowdoin's part.
Still before the jury are three other claims. Goodman contends
that the defendants breached a contract between Goodman and Bowdoin as
established in the Student Handbook, the Social Code and the Academic
Code. In addition, a 'tortious interference' claim asserts that the defendants
arbitrarily altered official Judicial Board procedures.
Goodman also accuses the College of negligence in training
its shuttle drivers, including Lee. Today, Carter dismissed claims of
tortious interference on the part of Edwards, Graves, and Tilbor, and
left for the jury's consideration the negligence claim, the breach of
contract claim, and tortious interference claims against Bradley and Mangawang.
Bowdoin's lawyers moved to dismiss all of Goodman's complaints
at a hearing in March 2001. Carter dismissed two of the counts at that
hearing, both of them involving contract law, and allowed the civil rights
claims to proceed.
Kilbreth said he expects the jury to reach a verdict today.