http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/
email: rshuler3156@gmail.com
A transplanted Midwesterner puts down roots in Alabama and helps show how "loyal Bushies" have corrupted our justice system.
On my previous diary, a number of commenters stated that I should write in a more straightforward fashion.
That is a suggestion well taken, so let me state this up front: I am Roger Shuler, author of the Legal Schnauzer blog and the former University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)employee who was fired, apparently for writing critically about the Bush Justice Department.
Also, I will dispense with the third-person style I've used so far here at DK. That seems to be confusing and off-putting to readers, and that certainly is not what I want.
I'm a newbie at DK, still learning my way around. Suggestions, input, critiques, etc. are always welcome. Particularly interested in ways to help make a DK diary and a personal blog interact effectively. Still wrestling with that one.
I want to share my story with DK readers mainly because I think what has happened to me is perhaps a first in the broader story about corruption in the Bush Justice Department. Most of the scandal's victims--Don Siegelman in Alabama, Paul Minor in Mississippi, Cyril Wecht in Pennsylvania, Georgia Thompson in Wisconsin--have been public officials or major Democratic Party donors.
To my knowledge, I am one of the few (maybe the only) "regular guys" who has been victimized. Another victim who might be considered a regular guy is Alex Latifi, a defense contractor from Huntsville, Alabama, whose business was ruined by a bogus investigation brought by U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.
I encourage DK readers to learn more about Latifi's case. He is of Iranian descent, and the racial overtones to his story are ugly indeed.
I don't think it's an accident that Latifi and I are both from Alabama. I call our state "Ground Zero" for the Bush DOJ scandal. We earned that title, I think, because we were the state where Karl Rove made his national reputation, by sweeping Republicans into control of our state appellate courts in the 1990s.
Rove has maintained an intense interest in Alabama politics, and he has a number of acolytes in the Republican machine that currently runs our state. One of those acolytes, Dax Swatek, is the father of attorney William E. Swatek, the corrupt Pelham, Alabama, attorney who filed a baseless lawsuit against me that started my legal tale of woe some seven years ago.
The latest chapter in that tale involves my termination at UAB, where I had worked for 19 years. Concerned citizens have voiced enough concern about my situation that UAB President Carol Garrison recently issued a public statement through her PR guy, Gary Mans.
Like many official statements, this one raises a number of questions without providing much in the way of answers:
At my blog Legal Schnauzer, I point out just a few of the questions that might reasonably be posed to Garrison. For example:
* By university policy, she will review the final appeal of my termination. And yet, she already has publicly stated her position on the matter. How can she be any sort of impartial arbiter?
* UAB's own grievance committee has found that my termination was wrongful, and I should be reinstated. Garrison's own human resources director, Cheryl Locke, has confirmed this in writing. Why did Garrison issue a statement saying I was terminated for poor performance when her own committee found I should not have been terminated at all?
Will UAB's chief executive respond to questions that are put to her? We will find out:
Questions for UAB President
If you would like to join me in posing these or other questions to Garrison, I'm sure she would be delighted to hear from you. You don't have to live in Alabama to feel the impact of this story. UAB receives more than $400 million a year in federal research funding. If the university is acting in an unlawful or discriminatory manner, taxpayers from around the country have every right to ask questions about it.
Garrison can be reached at:
cgarrison@uab.edu