Dive Brief:
- A state court on Monday sent Antioch University and the Coalition for the Common Good to mediation amid a legal battle over the university’s independence within the coalition it co-founded.
- The court also extended a temporary restraining order for two weeks that blocks CCG from dissolving Antioch’s board and taking control of the university’s finances.
- Antioch requested the restraining order last month after a portion of CCG’s board passed measures that the university’s leaders said amounted to a “hostile takeover” of the university.
Dive Insight:
Monday’s order makes mandatory the mediation Antioch and CCG had scheduled during the summer for early September at the university’s request.
But on Aug. 28 — six days ahead of the scheduled mediation — CCG’s board leaders passed resolutions that would have dissolved the 174-year-old university’s board and given CCG control of its bank accounts, according to the lawsuit. Antioch sued that day and quickly won a restraining order against the coalition.
CCG’s board has argued that Antioch exists as a division of the coalition under its fiduciary control. In a statement earlier this month, it described the resolutions passed in August as an effort to “simplify the governance structure to improve decision-making and help Antioch move forward.”
In a statement Monday, the CCG board described the mediation as standard for most of the court’s cases, and it said it was not surprised by the restraining order extension.
“We continue to believe that the CCG Board acted within its legal and fiduciary authority, and we remain confident in our position,” the board added.
Meanwhile, Antioch said in a statement that it welcomed the court’s decision on Monday and “remain confident in our legal position, and we are certain of our moral position.” Of the ordered mediation, the institution said, “We look forward to discussing a way forward that resolves this dispute without any further damage.”
The court will consider in the coming weeks whether to upgrade the restraining order against CCG to a longer-term injunction requested by Antioch while the case plays out.
Antioch leaders conceived of the coalition through the early 2020s as a partnership of equal, social justice-minded colleges, according to published accounts from those involved, including former Chancellor William Groves. Antioch found its first partner in Otterbein University, and the two launched CCG in 2023.
Otterbein’s president, John Comerford, also serves as CCG’s president, a role Antioch leaders have said he was supposed to be in only temporarily. Following Antioch’s lawsuit, Comerford has tried to fire Antioch President Lori Varlotta, according to an Antioch court filing and an interview with Varlotta.
Varlotta and the university allege that the conflict between Antioch and CCG leaders first arose after she raised concerns to the coalition that it lacked new member colleges and financial sustainability.
Tensions mounted throughout the summer, as CCG’s board executives raised the possibility of eliminating Antioch’s board of governors. In court documents, the coalition has said Antioch is a division of CCG, with the university’s board playing only an advisory role while CCG holds ultimate fiduciary responsibility and thus control over Antioch.
Antioch strongly disputes that framing, arguing that the coalition’s founding documents give the university’s board broad authority over Antioch operations. The university also says the founding documents require consent from Antioch’s chosen members to the full CCG board — which they haven’t given — before the coalition can make any major changes to either the coalition’s bylaws or the university.
“Had Antioch known CCG could or would attempt to extinguish the AU Board of Governors and otherwise take control over Antioch’s identity, assets, property, bank accounts, and campuses without consent from Antioch or its representatives, Antioch and the AU Board of Governors never would have agreed to form CCG,” the board said in its complaint against the coalition.
