Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is backing up Valparaiso University’s contention that a lawsuit to stop the sale of three of the Brauer Museum’s most valuable pieces of artwork to fund dorm renovations for first-year students should be dismissed because the plaintiffs who filed the suit don’t have standing to do so.

In a Tuesday filing, Rokita reiterates the university’s claim that Richard Brauer, the museum’s founding director and for whom the museum is named, and Philipp Brockington, a retired law professor from the university and one of the museum’s benefactors, cannot file the suit because they are not directly connected to the charitable trust, the Percy Sloan Fund, that provided the museum the artwork with the stipulation that proceeds from any sale of the works be reinvested in the museum and its collection.

Further, Rokita said in the filing that the attorney general’s office “is the proper party to maintain litigation involving questions of public charitable trust. And an individual member of the public has no right as such to maintain a suit of such character.”

Patrick McEuen, attorney for Brauer and Brockington, disagrees.

“This is such an egregious case. There really is no question that the university is ignoring its obligation to maintain and preserve the Sloan artwork donation. It’s as plain as the nose on my face, and I wonder whether Todd Rokita’s office really intends to oversee this charitable trust,” McEuen said. “I have a ton of respect for our attorney general but I wonder whether his minions have already decided and the fix is in.”

The university filed a motion to dismiss the case over a lack of standing on May 25. In a response filed June 19, McEuen cites case law about a “special interest” exception to grant standing to enforce a public interest charitable trust, which he said applies to both Brockington and Brauer.

“By destroying the reputation of the recipient of Sloan’s donation, the Brauer Museum of Art, the sale will also ignore the donative intent of Brockington’s public trust,” the filing notes.

Brauer’s “special interest,” meanwhile, is even more compelling, according to the filing.

“Brauer’s dedication to advancing the interests of the museum created by Percy Sloan’s donation(s) resulted in the museum bearing his name,” the document states. “As the ‘art world’ denigrates President (Jose) Padilla for its plan, it harms the reputation of the institution to which Brauer has lent his name.”

The controversy, as first reported in the Post-Tribune, erupted in February with an announcement by Padilla that the university’s board had approved the sale of three cornerstone pieces from the museum, “Rust Red Hills” by Georgia O’Keeffe, Frederic E. Church’s “Mountain Landscape” and “The Silver Vale and the Golden Gate” by Childe Hassam, to raise funds to renovate the dorms for first-year students.

Collectively, the pieces are worth millions of dollars and the O’Keeffe painting in particular has been lent to museums across the globe for display.

Students, faculty, alumni and art museum associations have all decried the sale as a violation of the trust agreement that provided the paintings, established museum protocol and the will of museum’s benefactors.

University officials have held firm, noting that renovating the dorms is necessary to attract students at a critical juncture for the university’s enrollment.

Brauer and Brockington filed the suit, along with a request for a temporary restraining order to halt the sale of the paintings, in late April. They dropped the restraining order request during a hearing in which they learned the sale of the paintings was not imminent.

The complaint alleges that Brauer and Brockington both have standing to challenge the sale of the artwork because of Brauer’s longtime association with the museum and personal stake in it, and because of an endowment for the museum established by Brockington to “acquire, restore, and preserve” works of art and artifacts for the museum.

The proposal to sell the artwork for renovating dorms, the documents note, is “as if the Percy H. Sloan donation is a mere ATM to be used irrespective of donor intent.”

The case was first assigned to Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer, but he recused himself because he taught on a part-time basis for 20 years at the university’s now-closed law school. The case has since been assigned to Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Thode.

Thode gave the university until June 26 to respond to McEuen’s filing on behalf of Brauer and Brockington.

alavalley@chicagotribune.com