Lawsuit: MSU interim president, others schemed to oust Gupta from dean's post

EAST LANSING — The drama surrounding Sanjay Gupta's forced resignation from his leadership post at Michigan State University has moved into the court system.

The former business school dean claims in a lawsuit he was terminated and falsely accused of mandatory reporting violations as part of a scheme to keep him from becoming MSU's next president and "enhance" now-Interim President Teresa Woodruff's personal ambitions to lead the university.

Six other university leaders, including Interim Provost Thomas Jeitschko, participated in the alleged scheme, Gupta said in a federal court complaint.

"The facts establish that Gupta did not violate any mandatory reporting policy, promptly acted to protect students and complied with published MSU Title IX polices ... and acted with integrity, transparency and professionalism at all times as Dean of the Eli Broad College of Business," the suit said.

An MSU spokesman, Dan Olsen, said the university would decline comment on the pending litigation. But he added that the suit will be "vigorously defended."

The suit comes about six months after Woodruff forced Gupta to resign following reports that he failed to report an instance of alleged sexual misconduct to the university's Title IX office, even though other employees had already reportedly done so.

Former President Samuel Stanley Jr. backed Woodruff, and the MSU Board of Trustees later hired a law firm to investigate Gupta's departure and other Title IX concerns in actions. MSU's Faculty Senate and other faculty leaders criticized the board's move.

In his suit, Gupta said he was forced out based on allegations he failed to "re-report" an incident involving an intoxicated college professor along with other alleged leadership failures, including a purported failure to investigate a possible violation of MSU's relationship violence and sexual misconduct policy.

The suit described Gupta as a tenured faculty professor and "the most successful and widely respected Dean of the Eli Broad College of Business in the history of the college." He was unjustifiably removed as dean "based on false pretexts" and was "intentionally defamed and stigmatized" by false statements, the suit alleges.

Besides Woodruff and Jeitschko, Title IX Coordinator Nicole Schmidtke, Senior Title IX investigator Allison Towe, interim Associate Provost Ann Austin, Stanley and Emily Guerrant, vice president of communications, are named as defendants.

Stanley left the school last fall, saying he had lost confidence in the trustees. Trustees had pressured him to resign before his contract expired in 2024, in part over his handling of Title IX issues. Stanley had objected to the board's investigation.

According to his suit, Gupta received a positive performance review from Woodruff, who was then the provost, in June 2022. During that review, Gupta told Woodruff he would like to serve as president when Stanley left his post, the suit said.

On the same day as the review, Gupta was informed of a complaint involving a professor accused of acting inappropriately during an end-of-the-year MBA program event, the suit said. Gupta went on to say he "fully and timely disclosed all information he had" regarding the incident and fully cooperated with investigators.

According to the suit, Gupta fully complied with MSU's relationship violence and sexual misconduct reporting policies.

Yet, on Aug. 12, Woodruff met with Gupta and informed him "he had just resigned," according to Gupta's suit. He was not allowed to appeal an investigation report that led to his firing, the suit said.

"Unbeknownst to Gupta, Defendants Woodruff, Jeitschko, Austin and Stanley pre-planned the August 12, termination, "orchestrating the process behind-the-scenes in an effort for Woodruff to smear and stigmatize Gupta's good name and thereby eliminate her competitor," the suit said.

Gupta alleges Schmidtke and Towe facilitated the termination, and Guerrant "publicly disseminated defamatory statements, falsely alleging that Gupta had resigned because he had violated the RVSM Policy," according to the suit.

The MSU board voted Friday to eventually release results of the investigation of Gupta's departure by Los Angeles-based law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. The report is finished, but trustees said they are waiting for a report outlining the firm's conclusions.

Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU interim president, others schemed to oust Gupta from dean's post: Lawsuit