A lawsuit against UO alleges that a member of the university’s department of business operations was fired after filing complaints about a supervisor.
The University of Oregon is being sued for $550,000 by a former senior team member of the business operations department alleging that they faced retaliation by the university after filing complaints against a manager for “gross waste of funds and abuse of authority.”
Cherokee Staples, who was previously UO’s director of business operations, filed the suit on March 11 for wrongful termination and violation of Oregon’s whistleblower protection law, which prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who report action they believe violates local, state or federal law.
Between March and October 2024, Staples brought issues to the associate vice president of administrative services about new Supervisor Richard Menard, who had been hired in December 2023.
The objections raised by Staples, along with other employees of the department, included but were not limited to: racist and sexist comments, hiring a personal friend as a consultant and paying them without a contract, hiring a non-approved external vendor and misinforming staff about equal pay regulations despite being corrected, according to suit documents.
In October 2024, Staples and other senior team members sent a memo to Associate Vice President of Administrative Services Jon Marchetta regarding incidents of discrimination and hostile work environment, according...
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