WILMINGTON — His place at UNCW may be uncertain, but the dean of Watson College of Education will not be silenced after being deposed by administration two weeks ago.
READ MORE: UNCW dean removed from position, lawyer said there could be legal action
ALSO: Sen. Michael Lee ranked second to last but still received UNCW award, documents show
“It has been intense,” Van Dempsey told Port City Daily on Monday. “It has been emotionally heavy. I’m worried about my colleagues and, and friends in the Watson College in particular, who feel the weight of this and how, how jarring and disruptive the way this has been handled.”
Dempsey spent his spring semester at the center of controversy over the university’s prestigious Razor Walker Award, given to those taking risks to advance education in the state. Facing pressure from Chancellor Aswani Volety, Sen. Michael Lee (R-New Hanover) received the honor, despite ranking second to lowest among committee votes, and faculty and student protests against the pick.
On June 26, the university announced Dempsey’s removal; he lawyered up, alleging the move was retaliation for revealing behind-the-curtain information to the media in an article in The Assembly.
As for UNCW, the administration maintains it is not in the wrong.
“The university denies that it has retaliated against Dr. Dempsey in any way. Dr. Dempsey occupied an at-will administrative position at the university and is a tenured faculty member,” UNCW spokesperson Krissy Vick wrote Monday.
The attorneys with Lea/Schulz and Rhine law firm are now tasked with negotiating with the university the terms of “retreat,” the process of Dempsey returning to faculty from an administrative position.
“That process has been disrupted by some of the choices in the way this has played out,” Dempsey said.
Namely, the university’s attempt to get Dempsey to sign a non-disparagement agreement — but the dean had already revealed the influence behind Lee’s win.
On June 2, Port City Daily reported the Razor Walker Award nomination committee ranked Michael Lee second to last out of 12 candidates. In an article with The Assembly six days later, Dempsey explained Chancellor Volety instructed Dempsey to ensure a conservative was named an award recipient. When the committee delivered its picks without the senator’s name on it, Volety overrode the decision and included Lee, according to Dempsey.
When the winners were announced in April, Watson faculty started a petition against Lee’s inclusion due to his sponsorship of the Parent’s Bill of Rights, what’s dubbed the North Carolina version of a “Don’t Say Gay” bill. As students protested outside the April 25 award ceremony, faculty also staged a walkout when Lee ascended the stage.
The opposition was denounced by incoming UNC System board of governors member Woody White and current member Wendy Murphy. The former called the walkout a “disgraceful spectacle” in a Carolina Journal op-ed; the latter sent an email to Dempsey, Volety, and a few UNCW trustees. Murphy said she was embarrassed at how the faculty acted in an unprofessional manner and called for them to be disciplined.
“In both cases, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington had no response, convened no discussions where I was at the table, in no way communicated to me any either sense of support for the college, for our faculty and staff, and for me, or our students, particularly the ones who participated in the protests,” Dempsey said.
The dean said he thought Murphy’s comments were inappropriate coming from a board of governors member, yet UNCW offered him no guidance.
Dempsey and his attorneys argue it was The Assembly’s interview and the dean’s defense of his faculty’s First Amendment rights that led him to a meeting with Provost James Winebrake on June 16. There Winebrake discussed removing Dempsey from his position. To his surprise, he was met three days later with a formal letter that included the NDA, something not brought up during discussion with Winebrake.
“And not only that there was a non-disparagement attachment, [but] how comprehensive it was in terms of previous board members and previous members of the administration and current board members and future board members,” Dempsey said.
Essentially, the NDA would prevent him from publicly scorning the university forever. Dempsey didn’t sign.
On June 26, he was served a formal notice of his termination as dean. He would retain his $200,000-plus salary for 90 days while the parties discussed a faculty position.
Dempsey was sitting in his lawyer’s office when he saw UNCW’s announcement. It stated Dempsey was “leaving” his position; a misrepresentation according to the former dean.
“The way they wrote the message was I had decided to leave — which was absolutely not the case,” Dempsey said.
He clarified that he was given a 16-minute notice via an email from Winebrake, which he didn’t see until his phone started “burning up” with texts and emails. Even if he had seen it prior to release, Dempsey noted it was not enough time to inform his colleagues personally.
With a 30-year track record of education advocacy at the state level and in academia, Dempsey’s last day as dean is Friday — his birthday.
Since the announcement, Dempsey told PCD he has been humbled and flattered by the amount of feedback and comments from inside and outside UNCW.
“It’s been overwhelmingly supportive and positive,” Dempsey said. “And there is an important fundamental set of principles behind all of this about governance and where our public institutions should work in a democratic society and what the university represents, what the UNC system represents, and I really appreciated the fact that people have situated what they know about this in the broader context.”
There’s still lots of unknowns when it comes to a final settlement with the university. If an agreement cannot be reached, a lawsuit is still an option, but Dempsey isn’t “chomping at the bit” to go there.
If he stays, Dempsey said he wants to maintain the research and work he does at the state level. He serves as an executive board member for Gov. Roy Cooper’s DRIVE Task Force, which stands for Developing a Responsive and Inclusive Vision for Education. Dempsey is also the director of the state’s Professional Educator Preparation and Standards Commission, which makes recommendations for the state board of education regarding all aspects of preparation, licensure, continuing education, and standards of conduct of public school educators.
However, an NDA is not part of the compromise.
“That’s another effort on the university’s part to suppress speech and free expression,” Dempsey said.
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