Gag Order Issued In Oral Roberts University Case

By: A district judge issued a gag order late last week barring all parties in a civil lawsuit involving Oral Roberts University and its former president, Richard Roberts, from discussing the high-profile case outside the courtroom.

District Judge Rebecca Nightingale on Jan. 11 said two constitutional rights were in competition in the wrongful-termination case: the right to a fair trial and the right to freedom of speech. She also expressed concern that the national attention the case has garnered could hamper either side?s ability to a fair jury trial in the future.

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 2 by three former ORU professors, alleges they were forced out after reporting the evangelical school?s involvement in a local political race and after they gave school regents a copy of a report documenting alleged moral and ethical problems of Roberts and his family.

Roberts stepped down as president in November amid accusations he misspent school funds to bankroll a lavish lifestyle. He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

On Jan. 10, attorneys for ORU and John Swails, one of the professors, reached a settlement after the first session of court-ordered mediation talks, resulting in Swails? reinstatement at the school. Swails, the former chairman of the school?s department of history, humanities and government, could return to work as early as yesterday. Other terms of the settlement are confidential.

In court on Jan. 11, ORU attorney John Tucker argued the need for the gag order, reading several passages from newspaper and wire service articles where Gary Richardson, an attorney for the professors, had been quoted talking about the case.

Tucker said articles related to the ORU case posted on the Web site of the Tulsa World newspaper generated hundreds, maybe thousands, of reader comments on the site, while reader comments on the paper?s stories about the Oklahoma attorney general?s litigation against poultry companies generated zero.

?This lawsuit should be confined to this courtroom, it should not be tried in the newspapers,? Tucker said.

In response, Richardson said he?s never violated ?an order of what an attorney should or should not do? in 35 years of practicing law, and accused defendants of trying to gag him and his clients while they hide behind a pulpit and claim freedom of speech.

Richardson was referring to a speech Roberts made in the ORU chapel after the lawsuit had been filed, telling students the suit amounted to ?intimidation, blackmail and extortion.?

?We think without question it?s a real rare thing in a civil case to give a gag order,? Richardson told the judge.

After Nightingale issued the order, Richardson and Frank Hagedorn, an attorney for Richard Roberts, traded jabs ? one of the hearing?s several tense moments between both sides.

Hagedorn accused Richardson of ?doing everything in his power? to damage his client.

But Richardson said he didn?t ?go after people, I represent people.?

At one point during the hearing, as attorneys argued another motion, Nightingale reminded both sides to keep comments to the matter at hand and refrain from taking potshots at each other.

"You all are arguing to me,"the judge warned.

After the hearing ended, attorneys for both sides declined comment on Nightingale?s ruling. Richardson would only say it was an ?extremely rare? decision.

Earlier in the hearing, Nightingale announced that a motion by ORU attorneys to have Richardson disqualified from the case because of what it claimed were conflicts of interest had been withdrawn.

She also gave attorneys for the professors two weeks to file another amended petition that would officially drop Swails as a plaintiff and better specify which school officials they are accusing, instead of broadly naming groups, such as the ORU board of regents.