Longtime Linfield University trustee Ronni Lacroute, who endowed a Shakespeare studies chair to keep English professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner at the private college, resigned Sunday from the board in protest of his abrupt firing.
In a letter to Linfield’s board, president and provost, Lacroute wrote that she could no longer serve “in good conscience” as a trustee.
“I am appalled by the summary termination of an esteemed, brilliant and respected tenured faculty member … who out of a sense of moral obligation has sought for the past year to bring deep-seated problems to light in order to help the Linfield community to thrive.”
Pollack-Pelzner, who had served as a faculty trustee, was fired Tuesday after he denounced the university’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations from students and faculty against board members, alleged that President Miles K. Davis had made an anti-Semitic remark about the “length of Jewish noses” and accused Davis of retaliating against him for speaking out.
The university, in a statement last week, said Pollack-Pelzner was fired for cause after he “deliberately circulated false statements about the university, its employees and its board,” was insubordinate and “interfered with the university’s administration of its responsibilities.”
Lacroute,a trustee for more than a decade,resigned after attending an hours-long board meeting Saturday, when she said members were toldto be positive and that the school was headed in the right direction.
Lacroute, who has contributed more than $4 million to the school, said she’ll continue to support the university and the McMinnville community. Earlier this year, she was recognized as “Fundraising Supporter of the Decade,” as part of the 2020 BroadwayWorld Regional Awards, according to the university.
Lacroute lives in Yamhill County. In 1991, she co-founded a vineyard and what became the world-class winery WillaKenzie Estate on 420 acres of property that had previously been a cattle farm, pastures and forest. As co-owner with her former husband, she immersed herself in the wine business for a quarter century until selling the winery in 2016.
She has been a donor to Linfield for more than two decades through three university presidents, creating specific funds to support faculty, staff and students, including the Ronni Lacroute Endowed Chair in Shakespeare Studies that Pollack-Pelzner held.
Lacroute, a theater lover who has provided financial support for many theater organizations and productions in the Pacific Northwest, said she created the $2 million endowed chair in April 2016for Pollack-Pelzner as a way “to keep Daniel” at Linfield “because he was such a stunning professor.” Pollack-Pelzner obtained tenure and was promoted to associate professorthat same year.
She said she learned of his firing from another faculty member.
“I was incensed,” she said. “You just don’t do that. The university didn’t want negative communication, but that’s not how you stop it. It’s how you make it worse. You take care of the problems. You just don’t suppress speech.”
Lacroute also has created the Lacroute Arts Fund, Lacroute Composer Readings and Chamber Music Program, Lacroute Initiative for Advancing the Liberal Arts and the Lacroute Endowed Academic Achievement Scholarship at Linfield.
Lacroute said she doesn’t accept the explanation from the university and Davis that the faculty handbook didn’t apply to Pollack-Pelzner because he was fired for cause as an employee and not for the work he did as a professor . The handbook outlined a process for disciplining tenured professors that called for a statement of charges at least 20 days before a faculty committee hearing is held.
Pollack-Pelzner, 41, had his work laptop shut off while he was still on a work-related Zoom meeting Tuesday afternoon and learned he was no longer employed in a message that bounced back to his personal email when he sent a message to his university email. He received a termination letter via FedEx on Wednesday.
Pollack-Pelzner had pushed the board to do more to address allegations of sexual misconduct by four board members, including David Jubb, a trustee who resigned and is now facing indictment. Jubb pleaded not guilty to allegations of abusing a student trustee in 2019 and abusing three other students in 2017. Another Linfield professor filed complaints last year, alleging that Davis and another trustee, Norm Nixon, had touched her inappropriately at school events. An outside investigator found the professor’s allegations were “substantiated by a preponderance of the evidence,” but the behavior didn’t violate university policy. Another student’s allegation of inappropriate touching by another sitting trustee in May 2019 was never investigated.
Lacroute said she also was dismayed to learn campus security workers washed off chalk messages written by students on campus that expressed support for Pollack-Pelzner.
On Sunday, when Linfield held “Carmencement” — a drive-through graduation with students arriving by car and receiving their diplomas during specific time slots — faculty members also reported that campus security had entered faculty offices and removed posters in support of Pollack-Pelzner. Among those removed were ones that read, “We Stand With DPP,” Pollack-Pelzner’s initials, or student printed signs that said, “KEEP CALM AND TAKE EXTRAORDINARY STEPS,” a play on the provost’s subject line “extraordinary step” in her announcement of Pollack-Pelzner’s firing.
English professor Anna Keesey said she was in T.J. Day Hall after attending the graduation when she said she noticed two campus security officials remove a poster from another faculty member’s office. When she asked for the poster to hold it for her colleague, she said she was told she couldn’t because it was being confiscated as “evidence,” Keesey said.
“Suppressing voices of dissent only causes further damage,” Lacroute wrote to the board. “I also cannot accept the administration’s claims that there are no problems anymore related to sexual misconduct or student safety on campus.”
Lacroute cited a recent online student survey held from April 27 through April 29 by psychology professors, which found that students overwhelmingly believe the university “harbors a culture where victims do not feel heard.”
“When will Linfield University seriously address the problems of gender oppression, patriarchal values, and silencing of dissent?” Lacroute asked in her letter.
Citing her significant financial investments in the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, she urged the trustees to “pay attention” to what the students on campus, many faculty members and alumni “are asking you to do so that Linfield University can restore its reputation, heal its community, and thrive.”
Scott Nelson, university spokesman, said late Sunday that he wasn’t aware of Lacroute’s decision to leave the board. “We regret her decision, as she has been a strong supporter of the university. She’s a wonderful person and one of the best supporters of the arts in the region,” he said by email.
Asked why posters were removed from campus buildings, Nelson said he saw “one protest sign on a car during the seven hours,” that he attended Sunday’s “Car-mencement,” which he said drew about 230 families in limos, floats and tour buses.
“I didn’t notice any other signs on campus today,” he wrote by email, “and don’t have a comment on anything else.”
