Appeals court rejects suit in WVU degree scandal

A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit filed by two former West Virginia University administrators who were at the center of a scandal in which university officials falsified records and awarded an MBA degree to the daughter of the state’s governor.

n Friday, a three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit filed by former business school Dean R. Stephen Sears and associate dean Cyril Logar, according to the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette.

In October 2007, WVU awarded a degree retroactively to Mylan executive Heather Bresch, the daughter of then Gov. Joe Manchin, who now represents West Virginia in the U.S. Senate, and a close friend of Michael Garrison, WVU’s president at the time. An independent panel hired by WVU to investigate the incident concluded administrators falsified Ms. Bresch’s transcript to back her claim that she had earned an MBA degree in 1998.

The panel found that Mr. Sears, Mr. Logar and former provost Gerald Lang “showed seriously flawed judgment,” according to reports from The Associated Press.

The panel’s investigation was triggered by a Pittsburgh PostGazette story that questioned how the degree was awarded.

Mr. Sears, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Lang resigned their posts shortly after the panel’s April 2008 report. Mr. Logar lost his post, but still teaches at the university.

Mr. Sears and Mr. Logar alleged that they were coerced into retroactively awarding the MBA.

WVU rescinded the degree it had issued to Ms. Bresch, who is now CEO of Mylan, a Cecil generic drug maker.