Published Tuesday
March 13, 2001 Ouster Was Political, Carhart Testifies BY ROBYNN TYSVER
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| | WORLD-HERALD BUREAU |
Lincoln - As the fetal-tissue controversy heated up last year, top University of Nebraska officials were meeting and exchanging e-mails on how to get Dr. LeRoy Carhart to resign his faculty position. The political pressure to oust Carhart, a Bellevue abortion doctor, came from all directions - state lawmakers, anti-abortion activists and Gov. Mike Johanns, according to testimony Monday in U.S. District Court. In fact, NU Regent Drew Miller actually drafted a resignation letter and asked Carhart to sign it at an August meeting. Carhart refused. But in October, his voluntary unpaid faculty position at the NU Medical Center was terminated. Carhart is seeking an injunction to compel the Medical Center to reinstate him. He testified at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom. If the injunction is denied, Carhart may continue to pursue a lawsuit in which he seeks unspecified monetary damages for the harm done to his reputation by the dismissal. Carhart said his termination was politically motivated and was in retaliation for his successful lawsuit challenging Nebraska's ban on "partial-birth" abortion. Medical Center officials said Carhart's termination had nothing to do with that or the fetal-tissue controversy. They maintain that his faculty position was terminated as a result of a restructuring and a new policy adopted for such positions. The controversy over Carhart's position at the Medical Center started after it was disclosed by The World-Herald in November 1999 that Carhart was contributing fetal brain tissue for research at the Medical Center. The pressure to compel Carhart to resign began almost immediately after the disclosure, Carhart testified. "NU wanted him to resign and, if he didn't resign, they were going to fire him," said Simon Heller of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, who is Carhart's attorney. Heller produced e-mails from Miller to top NU officials searching for ways to compel Carhart to resign. Some NU officials, including Miller, said Carhart's involvement tainted the medical research because of the doctor's notoriety within the anti-abortion community. They hoped that his resignation would ease some of the criticism that the Medical Center was receiving from anti-abortion groups about fetal-tissue research. Carhart said he resisted all calls to resign because to do so would be to give in to pressure from what he called anti-abortion "terrorists." The university maintains that Carhart's position was terminated as part of a reorganization of volunteer faculty positions. About 270 such positions were re-examined and, of those, 30 people were notified that they had been wrongly assigned to a field of study outside their expertise. Of those 30, some were told they would have to reapply for other positions. Carhart was one of those. Others, however, were told that they would be reassigned without having to reapply. David Buntain, the university's attorney, said officials never succumbed to pressure to fire Carhart. "Throughout that time, the Medical Center kept Dr. Carhart on the faculty," Buntain said. "They did not bow to that pressure." And there was plenty of pressure. Bob Blank, president of Metro Right to Life, testified that his organization felt strongly that it was wrong for Carhart, who performs abortions, to hold an honorary position with the university. Blank also said that his group had gathered "thousands" of signatures in support of Carhart's removal and had talked about his removal with lawmakers. In fact, Blank said, former NU Regent Rosemary Skrupa called him to try to convince the anti-abortion group that she remained firmly in its corner. The call came after Metro Right to Life opposed Skrupa's re-election bid because she had opposed a ban on research performed on fetal tissue obtained from elective abortions, Blank said. In one of those calls, Skrupa informed Blank that "something big was going to happen." Within a few weeks, Carhart had been terminated, Blank said. After the termination, Skrupa called once again to try to smooth things over with Metro Right to Life, pointing out that "something big" had happened and that Carhart had been terminated, Blank said. "In one of those conversations," Blank said, "she said ... she had been asking and telling other regents they needed to get rid of Carhart." The university official who actually terminated Carhart said it had nothing to do with abortion. James Armitage, dean of the College of Medicine, testified that he created a task force to study the volunteer faculty positions within days after he assumed his post in April 2000. Armitage said that based upon the task force's oral findings, he decided to require all volunteer faculty members who were not appointed in their field of expertise to reapply. That decision affected Carhart, who is a surgeon but was a faculty member within the pathology department. Despite the controversy, Armitage said he was not asked to terminate Carhart. The hearing was scheduled to continue today.
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