COLUMBUS — Ohio University squared off against a former faculty member March 19, arguing that a report the former engineering professor’s lawyer said ruined his client’s career is protected by the First Amendment.

Bhavin Mehta, a former non-tenure track faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, sued OU for defamation in October 2006 in response to a report released by then-Provost Kathy Krendl that contends several faculty members either condoned or encouraged academic fraud.

Mehta’s attorney, Fred Gittes, and Assistant Attorney General Randall Knutti, representing OU, presented closing arguments in Bhavin Mehta, Ph.D v. Ohio University at the Ohio Court of Claims.

The Bloemer-Meyer report, released May 2006, alleged that “rampant and flagrant plagiarism” had occurred in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology’s Department of Mechanical Engineering graduate program for more than 20 years.

Gittes contended that Hugh Bloemer and Gary Meyer, appointed by Krendl to investigate the allegations of plagiarism, were unqualified to conduct the inquiry. He called Bloemer’s criteria for plagiarism “fanciful nonsense.”

“They are contradicted by every other source,” he said. “He made up the standard, which is found nowhere else but in that one instance. These two people simply made it up.”

Knutti acknowledged Bloemer, a geography professor and former chairman of Faculty Senate, was not an expert on plagiarism. He said Krendl did not want advice from another expert but rather a sense from a regular faculty member about how such plagiarism could occur.

Knutti called the report “passionate and very, very strong” but said that the language used represents Bloemer and Meyer’s opinions, which are protected by the First Amendment.

“Had (Bloemer) known it would have been released, he testified that the language would be more temperate,” Knutti said.

Knutti further asserted that a pending public records request forced Krendl to release the report, even though she had doubts about it.

“If she could have done anything to stop this slow train wreck, she would have,” Knutti said. “The moment this report hit her desk, it was a public record, and she had to release it.”

However, Gittes said Mehta’s career was “destroyed for a sound bite.”

“It was more important to have a press conference than to review a report that everyone doubted,” he said.

Another mechanical engineering professor accused of advising plagiarized theses, Jay Gunasekera, also filed a defamation lawsuit against OU in 2006. That case is pending.

Gunasekera stepped down as chair of the mechanical engineering department after the report was released and will not advise any graduate students until 2009.

Both Gunasekera and Mehta are asking for $25,000 in damages, the maximum in Ohio.