By LARRY THOMAS
CLARKSVILLE — Nearly seven years after then-IU President Myles Brand fired basketball coach Bob Knight, a judge involved in one of the lawsuits related to Knight’s dismissal publicly discussed her role in the case for the first time.
In December 2000, Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard asked Clark Superior Court 2 Judge Cecile Blau to serve as special judge in a Monroe County suit filed by 46 IU basketball fans who claimed Brand lacked the authority to fire Knight without a vote of the IU Board of Trustees, and that Brand’s meeting with groups of trustees to discuss his decision to fire Knight on Sept. 9, 2000, represented a violation of Indiana’s open-door meetings law.
Knight — who coached at IU for 29 years and is now Texas Tech University’s coach — was fired the day after Brand spoke with trustees at Bryan House on IU’s Bloomington campus.
The basketball fans filed their lawsuit in October 2000, approximately two months before Shepard asked Blau to preside over the case.
During an address to the Jeffersonville Rotary Club on Tuesday at Clarksville’s Holiday Inn Lakeview, Blau recalled with some amusement the message to call Dave Remondini, Shepard’s legal counsel.
Blau said her staff puts urgent phone messages on her chair to ensure that she will see them, and that when she saw that Remondini had phoned her, she became concerned that a complaint had been filed against her.
“This call may change your life,” Blau recalled Remondini as saying.
She said Remondini told her that Shepard wanted her to serve as special judge in a case. While the appointment of special judges is a common practice in Indiana courts, Shepard is only involved in such appointments a few times a year, and those generally relate to high-profile murder or other criminal cases.
Then, Remondini told Blau about the case.
“He said, ‘It’s the Bobby Knight case.’
‘I thought, ‘Maybe a murder case would be better,’” Blau said.
When Blau accepted the assignment a day later, the first call she received — even before the case’s lawyers had been notified of her appointment — was from her son in Australia.
“Mom, you’re on ESPN,” Blau recalled her son as saying.
Blau ultimately issued two rulings in the case, both of which were in the university’s favor.
In July 2001, Blau issued a partial summary judgment in which she ruled that Brand did have the right to fire Knight without a vote from IU’s trustees.
In May 2005, she ruled that Brand and the trustees did not violate the state’s open-door law because, at the time, it included no prohibition on the type of meetings that took place at Bryan House.
“If I was one of those proactive judges, I probably would have ruled the other way,” said Blau.
The 2005 ruling was appealed, and in June 2006 the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld Blau’s decision 3-0. In October, the Indiana Supreme Court declined to hear an additional appeal regarding the open-door law.
Blau conducted all of the case’s hearings in Monroe Circuit Court in Bloomington.
Until last year, the open-door law only prohibited a majority of members of public boards from meeting privately to discuss business, other than specific issues that are permitted for discussion in advertised executive sessions.
Last year, the Indiana General Assembly amended the open door-law to prohibit “serial meetings,” at which members of public boards would meet privately in small groups to discuss public business. The distinction stems from Brand holding back-to-back meetings with groups of four trustees regarding Knight. A fifth trustee at either meeting would have constituted a quorum.
Blau said that had that amendment been in effect in 2000, her ruling might have been quite different.
“That would have been a different ballgame,” said Blau.
Blau said that she has received requests from “25 or 30” groups asking her to discuss the lawsuit, most of which occurred shortly after the Indiana Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of her ruling nearly 11 months ago.
“Since that time, I think people have kind of calmed down about asking,” she said.
