Wilder School faculty member sues fired instructor whose course she took over
An adjunct faculty member at VCU’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs has filed a $5.3 million defamation lawsuit against former Wilder School instructor Bill Leighty after he criticized the way she took over a public administration course he was teaching before he was fired this year.
D. Pulane Lucas, a health policy scholar who has taught business and economics courses at Reynolds Community College, filed the suit last month. She alleges Leighty defamed her in a letter circulated to VCU leadership this summer that said the educational quality of the course suffered after Lucas took over.
Leighty was dismissed from the Wilder School in March shortly after he allegedly angered the school’s legendary namesake, former Gov. Doug Wilder. Though the school is named for Wilder, his distinguished professor job title does not give him direct authority over personnel decisions.
In the letter Leighty sent in June that sparked the defamation suit, Leighty said Lucas had “impeccable academic credentials,” but claimed her “longstanding relationship with Doug Wilder” may have been a factor in why she was chosen as the replacement instructor.
“In short, Leighty’s characterizations of Dr. Lucas were made to advance his own self-serving narrative that Dr. Lucas is not qualified to teach his former class and is otherwise a toady of former Governor Wilder,” the lawsuit says. “This narrative is false and defamatory.”
Leighty has not yet submitted a response to the suit, which was filed in Richmond Circuit Court on Nov. 14. He declined to comment for this article.
Because Leighty is a former chief of staff to two governors who is well known in Virginia politics and government circles, his ouster from VCU has drawn more attention than the typical higher education personnel move.
The dean of the Wilder School fired Leighty in March without explanation, just days after he refused to ask Richmond Mayor Danny Avula a politically charged question during a virtual question-and-answer event.
Leighty said he received a text message during the event indicating it was Wilder, a former Richmond mayor, who wanted him to ask Avula the question, which dealt with financial tensions between Richmond and VCU. The night before Leighty was fired by Wilder School Dean Susan Gooden, Wilder sent Gooden an email calling Leighty’s actions “prejudicial” and saying he wanted to “follow next steps.”
Those events inspired Leighty to embark on a public crusade against what he has described as Wilder’s overly strong grip on the school.
Graham Moomaw
Now, Lucas is claiming Leighty’s beef with Wilder veered into unfounded personal attacks against her.
Leighty’s letter describing concerns with his former course was addressed to VCU’s Board of Visitors, then-interim provost Beverly Warren, the VCU Faculty Senate and the VCU Student Government Association.
Around the same time Leighty penned the letter, an outside law firm hired by VCU was investigating several workplace complaints regarding the Wilder School. That probe led Wilder to file a federal lawsuit against VCU leaders. Wilder dropped the case before it went very far, and VCU has declined to release the law firm’s findings.
Leighty framed the letter as an attempt to sound the alarm about academic freedom at the Wilder School, implying he had been fired for crossing Wilder and replaced by someone on friendlier terms with the former governor. After hearing from students who felt their education suffered as a result, Leighty wrote to the VCU community, the school’s reputation was at stake.
“One can easily surmise that this information is now in wide circulation and does not reflect well on the school,” Leighty wrote.
Leighty indicated the letter was based on information from his former students, but Lucas alleges he had no firsthand knowledge of anything occurring in the graduate-level class. Several students contacted by The Richmonder earlier this year said they shared the views Leighty expressed in his letter.
The Lucas lawsuit, filed by her attorney Richard Hawkins III, takes exception to several specific statements Leighty made.
‘Longstanding relationship’ vs. ‘limited interactions’
Lucas’s filing says she sees Wilder as one of her “key inspirations for working in the area of public policy, especially as an African-American.” But the two have had “limited interactions” over the years, according to the suit, despite Leighty’s suggestion they were on close terms.
The court filing says Lucas met Wilder in the 1980s while she was an intern with the Oakland City Council in California and Wilder was a speaker at an event she attended.
“Dr. Lucas spoke with Wilder at that time and was impressed by his knowledge, charisma and courage,” the suit says.
Lucas and Wilder spoke again a few years later, also in Oakland.
There has been limited contact between the two since then, according to the suit, apart from “a few subsequent brief public professional interactions at gatherings, such as conferences and galas.”
Leighty’s letter pointed to a 2022 Wilder School article about Lucas that mentioned Lucas’s recollection of meeting Wilder decades ago. In that article, Lucas said it felt like coming “full circle” to receive a doctorate degree from the Wilder School in 2013.
The lawsuit claims Leighty’s letter falsely implied there may be an intimate relationship between Lucas and Wilder. Leighty did not hint at a romantic connection apart from saying the two appeared to have a “longstanding relationship.”
‘So boring’
The dispute also involves a comment Leighty claimed Lucas made to his former students after taking over the public administration course mid-semester.
Leighty said he was told Lucas called the topic of public administration “so boring,” a comment he said left students “quite shocked and dismayed.”
Lucas said the comment was stripped out of context, insisting she had actually said that teaching a 7 p.m. class straight from a textbook would be “so boring.” Because of that, she said she told students she would be “integrating case studies so that the class would be interactive.”
“To the contrary, in that first class, Dr. Lucas said that she found the topic very interesting, and she hoped her students would too,” the suit says.
Lucas also denied that she called the public administration textbook Leighty had chosen “terrible.”
Policy Pathways
Leighty’s letter flagged concerns about apparent overlap between the curriculum Lucas had chosen for his former course and the focus of a nonprofit organization she runs called Policy Pathways Inc. that has hosted a summer academy through the Wilder School geared toward high school students.
In the court filing, Lucas said Leighty falsely implied she had a conflict of interest by intermingling Policy Pathways material with the Wilder School course she took over.
The suit acknowledges Lucas incorporated “capstone projects” she initially developed for her nonprofit into the Wilder School course to “complement and work in connection with the already existing curriculum.”
Leighty had assigned the students to read excerpts from his own book “Capitol Secrets,” the suit says, a requirement she removed after she took control of the curriculum.
Leighty had raised concern about the capstone projects because one project on a list presented to Wilder School students was focused on teaching elementary school children about Wilder. That project was titled “Trailblazer Tales The Legacy of L. Douglas Wilder.”
Though the exact nature of the capstone projects is unclear, Leighty said in his letter that students were concerned about whether the projects were truly graduate-level exercises or work more aligned with the nonprofit’s summer academy for younger, less advanced students.
The defamation suit says none of the choices Lucas made about the curriculum were meant to “advance her own personal work for her organization,” adding that Lucas “hewed to Leighty’s own prior syllabus in many ways.”
Lucas argues that Leighty’s allegations, when taken together, damaged her professional reputation.
Even if Leighty was relaying information he had heard from students, the lawsuit says, he circulated the accusations in the VCU community without speaking with her to find out if they were true.
In a statement, Lucas called Leighty’s comments “false, reckless and professionally harmful.”
“I filed this lawsuit because the truth matters,” Lucas said. “I am committed to ensuring that accountability prevails, that my name is vindicated, and that my work — which has always been rooted in excellence and responsible leadership — continues without distortion or distraction.”
Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org
