OU Board Of Regents Seek Protective Order Against NonDoc In Lawsuit Over Boren Investigation Report

The University of Oklahoma Board of Regents is asking a Cleveland County judge to prohibit the news site NonDoc from publishing document it obtains during the discovery phase of a lawsuit. 

Tres Savage, NonDoc’s Editor in Chief, filed suit against the university after it declined to produce reports created by law firm Jones Day, which OU tasked with investigating allegations of financial and sexual misconduct by former OU President David Boren and former OU Vice President Jim “Tripp” Hall. 

“The university has spent a tremendous amount of taxpayer money to have these investigations done, to produce these reports regarding financial issues and sexual misconduct by OU officials. The public deserves to know what they found,” Savage said. 

In its motion for a protective order, attorneys for the OU Regents said NonDoc should be barred from publishing documents it produces during the discovery phase of its lawsuit in order to ensure the case is “adjudicated by this Court and not the court of public opinion.” 

The Regents said in the motion that a protective order would “protect the University from the annoyance, harassment, embarrassment, oppression of having confidential materials published.” 

Savage, an OU alumni, said the results of the investigation, which university funded with more than $1 million, are of intense public interest. 

“I think accountability and transparency in government institutions is critical to a health civic environment. I learned that at the University of Oklahoma,” Savage said. “And my hope is that the leaders of the University of Oklahoma and its current Board of Regents will realize that transparency and accountability in this matter is important.”