DuluthiLeaks: Diversity, Inclusion and Bulldog Athletics
In April the University of Minnesota Duluth men’s hockey team won a national championship and an oil refinery in the neighboring town battled a dangerous fire. Those events seem to have overshadowed the biggest story of March: UMD women’s hockey coach Shannon Miller winning a discrimination lawsuit.
To recap: UMD officials opted in December 2014 to not offer Miller a new contract, despite her record leading the Bulldogs to five national championships. Miller filed suit against the University of Minnesota Board of Regents, alleging discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, age and national origin, and that UMD retaliated against her for making sexual discrimination complaints. The jury awarded Miller $3.74 million — $744,832 in lost wages and $3 million in emotional distress.
For the fourth edition of DuluthiLeaks — Perfect Duluth Day’s series in which public documents are released as if they contain secret information leaked from an anonymous whistle blower — we present Chancellor Lendley Black’s email to the community following the trial, and the UMD Faculty Senate’s rebuke of the chancellor’s “seemingly casual dismissal of the unanimous judicial verdict” and “unwillingness to accept a hard-to-hear truth.”
