Kaleb Poor
Staff Writer
In their pre-semester meeting on Friday, the UW Board of Trustees approved a motion allowing UW general counsel Tara Evans to file a motion to appeal, a move likely intended to block the release of records related to the 2019 investigation and dismissal of then-president Laurie Nichols.
The motion was made and approved following a confidential executive session which lasted twice as long as was expected. Additionally, the motion was not on the Trustees’ agenda.
“That was not a motion by the trustees to appeal,” said Chris Boswell, UW’s interim vice president for community affairs. “In fact, there is no decision yet from the board of trustees [on whether to appeal]. That was just an authorization… that preserves the ability of the University to appeal if the University chooses to appeal Judge [Tori] Kricken’s decision.”
Boswell said the final decision on whether or not to appeal the ruling made earlier this year is the Trustees’ to make, though with no trustee meetings scheduled until a Feb. 19 conference call, it is unclear how the trustees will make such a decision before the Feb. 3 deadline.
When asked about this issue, Board of Trustees chairman Dave True declined to comment, saying only that “it would be inappropriate for me to comment on this legal matter at this time.”
This latest development in the Nichols saga, which has sparked widespread public frustration and pitted Wyoming’s only public four-year university in a lawsuit against a coalition of state news organizations, comes as UW has only one week remaining in their 30-day window to file an appeal.
The Jan. 3 decision by Albany County district court Judge Kricken declared that UW must release a bounty of emails and other public records related to the trustees’ investigation into the university’s first female president as well as her dismissal in 2019. UW had argued the majority of the records in question did not meet the state’s legal definition of “public records.”
In her decision, Kricken characterized UW’s use of attorney-client privilege as inappropriate and ordered their release on grounds that they were, in fact, public records under Wyoming law. UW was permitted to withhold some records, but must provide a privilege log in doing so.
A privilege log is a list of all documents being withheld and the legal grounds for withholding them.
If UW chooses to contest Kricken’s ruling, they must file a notice of appeal before the 30-day deadline arrives next week. Any appeal would be taken for consideration to Wyoming’s Supreme Court.
“I will say that there have been instances where a Supreme Court decision differs from or clarifies a lower court ruling,” said Boswell. “And that would be the nature of an appeal… if an appeal were to occur.”
The conundrum of how the trustees plan to come to a decision regarding whether or not to file an appeal is just one in a mountain of unanswered questions that have steadily accumulated since the Nichols saga began.
To date, UW has offered no public explanation as to why Nichols was investigated or dismissed.
While one can only speculate as to the trustees’ intentions, motivations or potential actions, it is clear that they do not intend to release any records related to Nichols’ dismissal without fighting tooth and nail.
