Mike Florio ,
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The hiring of Bill Belichick has become a key aspect of a new lawsuit.
Via Amanda Christovich of FrontOfficeSports.com, former North Carolina provost Chris Clemens alleges violations of the state’s open meeting laws by the university’s board of trustees on multiple occasions, including the Belichick hire .
From page nine of the civil complaint: “The Board called an ‘emergency meeting’ with minimal notice, then immediately entered closed session to approve hiring a high-profile football coach whose compensation package and entire hiring was already public. The Board’s perfunctory return to open session for a rubber-stamp vote demonstrates that substantive deliberation occurred in secret.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the board resorted to a closed session at least twice to discuss conference alignment issues.
UNC board of trustees chair Malcolm Turner characterized Clemens’s allegations as “disappointing and inaccurate, not to mention a waste of taxpayer dollars, for which this former officer of the University shows no regard” in a statement to Christovich.
The inherently public nature of Belichick’s current job has been an issue on multiple occasions since he took the job. Emails sent and received by UNC employees are fair game for disclosure. Also, Belichick’s decision to ban Patriots scouts from the team’s facility gives rise to potential liability under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, if the Patriots were inclined to press the issue.
The bigger problem for Belichick’s new team is that the Tar Heels are 2-2, with their only wins against overmatched FCS schools. The losses have been decisive, to TCU and UCF. Next weekend, Clemson comes to town.
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