Sports

Escaping new AD Hermann tricky for Rutgers

The hurricane season officially began June 1 and Rutgers clearly has battened down the hatches, hoping to ride out the Julie Hermann storm.

Hermann is scheduled to begin her appointment as the university’s new athletic director on June 17. The governor of the state has said he supports the university president who has said he supports Hermann.

On Sunday, in a guest column in the Newark Star Ledger, Rutgers legal counsel John Farmer Jr. declared, “She starts June 17. Period.’’

When a top lawyer speaks that clearly and definitively, one only can assume he has seen all of the vetting documents Hermann was required to fill out, and he knows the five-year deal worth about $2.25 million Rutgers gave her down to the smallest of the small print.

But if Rutgers is going to heed the cry of some of the state’s top politicians and address the concerns of faculty members who have questioned the search process that led to Hermann’s appointment, it needs to do so before she takes office.

The Post reached out to some of the top legal professorial minds in the city to get an idea of what, if any legal grounds, Rutgers has to back out of the deal.

The lawyers pointed out that because none of them has seen the Memorandum of Understanding that Hermann and Rutgers signed on May 14 or any of the vetting documents Hermann submitted to Parker Executive Search, they could not offer absolute opinions.

The consensus, however, was that Rutgers’s best case hinged on the vetting documents.

“If she lied on the vetting documents Rutgers may very well have a strong case,’’ NYU law professor Barry E. Adler told The Post.

As reported in the Asbury Park Press, Hermann’s Memorandum of Understanding contains two clauses by which she could face termination for cause: One is a fairly standard ‘moral turpitude,’ clause.

The other is if Hermann engages in “conduct tending to bring shame or disgrace to the university, or otherwise detrimental to the university’s good name and reputation.”

The latter clause is where things get dicey.

Lester Brickman, a law professor and founding member of the Cardozo Law School whose expertise is contracts and torts, said Hermann’s statement uttered at her introductory news conference on May 15 — “There is no video, trust me.’’ — could be an avenue for Rutgers to explore because her denial began the brouhaha that has been detrimental to the university’s good name.

Hermann said those words in response to being asked if she knew of the video taken at the wedding of her former assistant volleyball coach at Tennessee, Ginger Hameline. Hameline won a $150,000 lawsuit against Hermann and Tennessee for pregnancy discrimination.

That video, in which Hermann toasts Hameline by saying, “I don’t want you to come back in February with any surprises, you know, in the office and all, and it would be hard to have a baby in there and babysitting,’’ was used by Hameline’s attorneys.

Brickman pointed out that it’s unknown if those clauses are retroactive in the Memorandum of Understanding.

Brinkman and Robert E. Scott, a Columbia University law professor, agreed litigation likely would be costly and probably unpleasant for both parties if Rutgers wants to get out of the deal. The university already has spent more than $2.3 million in settlements, search firms and crisis management consulting since former basketball coach Mike Rice was fired on April 2.

“It’s my speculation that both parties would prefer to reach an agreement with confidentiality clauses that allow both to walk away with a smile,’’ Scott said.