The Chronicle News Blog: Embattled Official at Eastern Michigan U. Says He Is ‘Scapegoat’ in Crime Scandal
A veteran administrator at Eastern Michigan University says the institution’s president and public-safety director “focused blame” on him for its faltering response to a murder on the campus.
In a letter to Eastern Michigan’s Board of Regents on Wednesday, a lawyer for James F. Vick, vice president for student affairs, said the officials had made his client the “designated scapegoat” for how Eastern Michigan had handled information about the death of Laura Dickinson, a student who was killed in her dormitory room last December.
The letter rebutted the findings in a recent report by the Detroit-based law firm Butzel Long, which concluded that several officials, including Mr. Vick, knew that Ms. Dickinson had probably been murdered but concealed that information from top administrators and students, violating federal law and personal trust.
In the letter, Mr. Vick’s lawyer, Thomas C. Manchester, said his client had taken a polygraph test to prove that he had not withheld any information. Eastern Michigan’s board plans to make personnel recommendations based on the report in the next few days. —Eric Hoover
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