Those involved in the Oral Roberts University lawsuit are forbidden to discuss the case.

The attorneys and parties involved in the Oral Roberts University lawsuit no longer can talk about the case outside of court.

In the case’s first court hearing on Friday, Tulsa County District Judge Rebecca Brett Nightingale granted a gag order, saying she was concerned about everyone’s ability to get a fair trial, considering the public comments made so far by the parties and attorneys.

Three former professors sued ORU, now- former President Richard Roberts and others on Oct. 2, claiming they had wrongfully lost their jobs for acting as whistleblowers. In the following months, developments in the lawsuit and at ORU occurred nearly daily.

On Thursday night, following court-granted mediation, one of the professors, John Swails, settled his portion of the case and accepted an offer from ORU to work for the school again, teaching classes and leading the new Center for Israel and Middle East Studies, Swails said. The other professors, Tim Brooker and Paulita Brooker, are continuing with the lawsuit.

Nightingale said highly publicized lawsuits sometimes are moved out of town for trial, but the ORU

She weighed the constitutional rights to a fair trial and freedom of speech and said, “The court takes both of these rights quite seriously.”

She quoted Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada in limiting statements outside the courtroom that would be “substantially likely to have a materially prejudicial effect” on the right to a fair trial.

John Tucker, an attorney for ORU and defendants not including Roberts, had argued for the case to be “confined to this courtroom” and not “tried in the newspaper.”

Gary Richardson, an attorney for the former professors, argued, “I think it’s really a frightening thing to set a precedent of (limiting) any kind of freedom of speech.” He said he was not concerned that his clients would not get a fair trial.

“It’s a real rare thing in a civil case to give . . . a gag order,” Richardson said.

William R. Grimm, a Tulsa lawyer and the 2006 Oklahoma Bar Association president, said gag orders occur in perhaps less than 5 percent of cases, usually in high-profile cases that could significantly impact a community. Prior restraint helps “keep the playing field level” for all parties, he said.

“The public has a right to know about litigation, and our court system is very open,” Grimm said.

Court hearings remain open to the public in the ORU case.

Richardson asked Nightingale about the possibility of ORU founder Oral Roberts, who is not a party in the lawsuit, making public statements about the case when no one involved could respond.

In a campus chapel service in October, Oral Roberts told students, “The devil is not going to steal ORU,” but Richardson summarized Roberts’ speech as characterizing the professors as thieves being used by Satan. Tucker replied that the professors could sue Roberts for defamation. Nightingale said that if Roberts made public statements, Richardson could ask the court to handle the situation.

Also during the hearing, Nightingale gave the Brookers a deadline of Jan. 25 to file a new version of their lawsuit. After that, Nightingale will address various issues, including requests for documents, that the attorneys have raised, she said.

Nightingale announced that ORU and the other defendants had dropped their request to disqualify Richardson as the professors’ attorney.

At one point during the hearing, Nightingale reminded all of the attorneys to direct their statements to her, implying they were not to bash one another, as they had briefly done, for the benefit of the media present. None of the plaintiffs or defendants came to the hearing, only their attorneys.

April Marciszewski 581-8475
april.marciszewski@tulsaworld.com