Former Gov. Doug Wilder scraps lawsuit against VCU officials

Two months after former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder sued a pair of VCU leaders over a recent workplace investigation involving him, Wilder is voluntarily dropping the case.

Wilder filed a motion to dismiss the case on Tuesday, and a federal judge ordered the case closed the same day.

The former governor and Richmond mayor had sued VCU President Michael Rao and Chief Audit and Compliance Executive Suzanne Milton over a probe earlier this year into the workplace culture of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.

Wilder, who holds the title of distinguished professor at the school named in his honor, claimed the investigation violated his rights and was an act of retaliation against him for his past criticism of VCU leadership. Attorneys for VCU said the probe was a routine step taken in response to multiple complaints.

The VCU lawyers were seeking to have the case dismissed by the court, arguing it was too vague and light on factual claims to proceed.

The lawsuit was dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning Wilder could still refile it in some other form. The court filings do not give a reason for why the suit is being dropped.

The move leaves the latest Wilder-VCU drama in a sort of limbo, with no clear resolution.

Wilder and an attorney working with him on the suit didn’t respond to an email requesting comment for this story. A VCU spokesperson declined to comment.

Earlier this year, former Wilder School employee Bill Leighty accused Wilder of being behind his sudden, mid-semester ouster from the school, leaving government students without their regular professor. 

Leighty, who previously served as chief of staff to former Govs. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, said at the time that he felt Wilder had been given too much power over the school’s affairs and is allowed to use the school as “his perch to throw slings and arrows at people who he thinks don’t agree with him.”

VCU has not disclosed specifics about the complaints that Wilder claims led to unfair scrutiny of him, apart from saying the allegations deal generally with bullying or toxic/abusive behavior. An outside law firm hired to conduct the Wilder School investigation issued a 31-page report on June 30, but the university isn’t releasing the full document.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, The Richmonder obtained a heavily redacted copy of the report, which was prepared by the Husch Blackwell law firm.

Specific details on what the law firm found are redacted, but a summary indicates few other Wilder School employees agreed with the idea there were problems in the workplace.

“In summary, aside from the Reporter, no other employees interviewed described the work

environment as toxic or threatening,” the report said, referring to the person who filed one of the complaints. “To the contrary, with the exception of the Reporter, none of the witnesses interviewed identified any instances in the WSGPA workplace that made them uncomfortable or that they considered intimidating, offensive, or abusive. There is no evidence of physical violence or abuse.”

The final line of the summary, which mentions a review of emails, is redacted. According to the report, the law firm reviewed more than 4,700 emails sent between Jan. 1 of 2024 and June 10 of this year.

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org. VCU is a sponsor of The Richmonder, but did not influence or review this story.