Christine Grant's View of the Meyer Case

uihawk82 said:
I dont think it was the UI and Barta who could say let's not go to trial. Barta and UI were the defendants so Meyer was in the position to say no to any offer by the U and Barta.
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It also came out in the media that Meyer seemed willing to settle and her attorneys approached the Iowa attorneys about making a settlement which they ignored and proceeded to go to trial. Had Iowa wanted to settle Meyer could have said no but it didn't go down that way. The Iowa people foolishly thought they had an airtight case.
 
hawkeyemark said:
It came out in the media that during jury selection they specifically weeded people out who follow college sports in the state. I've gone through jury selection twice and have a pretty good feel for the kinds of things the attorneys ask although this represented a very unique case. Highly possible that this woman lied and then had the stupidity to post her triumph on Facebook. In a nutshell it reflects so many things wrong in society today.
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Serious question: are potential jurors under oath when answering those questions?
 
RobHowe said:
LINK
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Clearly a long distance view. This case had nothing to do with gender equity or sexual preference...except that a shitty employee used it as her "out" knowing the current political environment gave her a decent chance of winning. I doubt very much that this is what Dr Grant wanted or stood for. If only she knew the deeper story.

True "equality" means you get a fair chance at the job no matter who you are....and if you do a shitty job, you get fired, no matter who you are. Equality means an equal chance to succeed AND an equal chance to fail. The second half doesn't seem to apply in today's world.
 
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lightning1 said:
If I was a Clown fan, I'd never put Barta's job in jeopardy. His replacement might actually demand more from Iowa coaches than the mediocrity we have been stuck with for the past 2 decades.
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Clever, but most clone fans aren't capable of that level of analytical thought. They'd just go with the simple "get iowa!!!" angle...which I'm sure this stupid beatch from Altoona did.
 
hawkdrummer1 said:
and that would be enough to support an appeal...especially when she's the jury foreman
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I would say at this point keep Barta out of any decision making and let the legal team put their heads together and figure out where to go from here. Appreciate the info from DMLadyhawk about voir dire as I talked my way out of jury duty both times during selection so never made it that far. Lots of moving parts to this story and clearly way more to it than you can pick up even following it closely on the internet.
 
hawkdrummer1 said:
and that would be enough to support an appeal...especially when she's the jury foreman
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Well, the jury deliberated long enough that the verdict didn't have to be unanimous......I really don't see anything coming of this allegation.....but I could be wrong obviously.
 
A few thoughts. I'm a lawyer (although not a very good one ;)):

(1) I hate sex discrimination cases because most of the time they're BS. If someone was legitimately discriminated against, then fine, bring a claim. But most of the time these claims are filed by people seeking "retribution" after being legitimately fired for incompetence. And as a previous poster astutely pointed out, the current political environment gives these plaintiffs a chance.

(2) These claims suck for business. Because no one can be fired without fear of a looming lawsuit. Businesses (and I guess you can include universities like U Iowa) need some discretion and leeway to fire incompetent or subordinate employees. You can't do that anymore.

(3) Iowa and Barta probably should have settled the case, but sometimes it makes sense to go to trial. Sometimes for no other reason than to deter others from bringing similar claims. Because if you settle with "Person A," then "Person B" who's thinking about bringing a BS claim (like the one brought here) might be more inclined to do so if the other party has a reputation for throwing out early settlement offers. So if Iowa would have settled here, then it would be telling basically every employee "sue us on the basis of sex discrimination and you'll get a nice settlement." So I don't think it was completely idiotic for Barta to take this to trial.

However, I believe that Iowa's legal department or legal team or whoever is TOTALLY ****ing incompetent based on the long term contracts given to Ferentz.
 
DMLadyhawk said:
Well, the jury deliberated long enough that the verdict didn't have to be unanimous......I really don't see anything coming of this allegation.....but I could be wrong obviously.
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It was a civil case not a criminal one the verdict didn't have to be unanimous. You only have to "sway" 5 jurors.
 
trj said:
It was a civil case not a criminal one the verdict didn't have to be unanimous. You only have to "sway" 5 jurors.
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The jury instructions have been in the paper. The verdict could have been unanimous as reported or could have been 7 to 1 after a certain amount of time deliberating. The papers reported the verdict as unanimous. They also reported the jury felt a lot of the discrimination was structural. For example under Barta the number of female coaches had declined by over 50% and although he had not fired all the homosexual coaches he had fired a majority of them largely without cause. There was lots more for anyone who wants to read the details. So Meyer may have been an unpleasant employee, but the other circumstances made it look like it fit a pattern of discrimination. Iowa needs to take a long look and straighten things out.
 
hagarwood said:
The jury instructions have been in the paper. The verdict could have been unanimous as reported or could have been 7 to 1 after a certain amount of time deliberating. The papers reported the verdict as unanimous. They also reported the jury felt a lot of the discrimination was structural. For example under Barta the number of female coaches had declined by over 50% and although he had not fired all the homosexual coaches he had fired a majority of them largely without cause. There was lots more for anyone who wants to read the details. So Meyer may have been an unpleasant employee, but the other circumstances made it look like it fit a pattern of discrimination. Iowa needs to take a long look and straighten things out.
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I am guilty of commenting without knowing all the details.........that's my bad. I didn't follow this case until now. I am playing catch up with all this information. It's a big deal, a very big deal. I should have been paying attention a lot sooner.
 
STLhawkeye20 said:
A few thoughts. I'm a lawyer (although not a very good one ;)):

(1) I hate sex discrimination cases because most of the time they're BS. If someone was legitimately discriminated against, then fine, bring a claim. But most of the time these claims are filed by people seeking "retribution" after being legitimately fired for incompetence. And as a previous poster astutely pointed out, the current political environment gives these plaintiffs a chance.

(2) These claims suck for business. Because no one can be fired without fear of a looming lawsuit. Businesses (and I guess you can include universities like U Iowa) need some discretion and leeway to fire incompetent or subordinate employees. You can't do that anymore.

(3) Iowa and Barta probably should have settled the case, but sometimes it makes sense to go to trial. Sometimes for no other reason than to deter others from bringing similar claims. Because if you settle with "Person A," then "Person B" who's thinking about bringing a BS claim (like the one brought here) might be more inclined to do so if the other party has a reputation for throwing out early settlement offers. So if Iowa would have settled here, then it would be telling basically every employee "sue us on the basis of sex discrimination and you'll get a nice settlement." So I don't think it was completely idiotic for Barta to take this to trial.

However, I believe that Iowa's legal department or legal team or whoever is TOTALLY ****ing incompetent based on the long term contracts given to Ferentz.
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Thanks STLHawkeye! Good points all around
 
uihawk82 said:
Pretty sour grapes toward isu fans thinking they would throw a trial verdict based on fandom.
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uihawk82 said:
Pretty sour grapes toward isu fans thinking they would throw a trial verdict based on fandom.
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You did see that I used the word "potential" didn't you?

I admit it would have been hard to assemble a jury in Iowa that are filled with people who aren't Hawkeye fans, Cyclone fans, feminists, liberals, gay rights activists, conservatives, hardcore Democrats, hardcore Republicans etc. That would really whittle the potential jury pool down to a few people.
 
I don't think Barta set out to discriminate against Meyer but his big mistake was not understanding how this would look within the culture we live in today. I don't think this was a jury of liberal activists that were going to score one for women's/gay rights but, on a sub-conscious level, a bias against white, male, hetero CEOs as oppressors was in place here that put Barta and the U of I as a whole behind in this from the beginning.

In the end, it's like the Iowa-Minnesota basketball game in which there was a bad call by the refs. It sucks, but you have to move on.
 
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