As Chair of Antioch University’s Board of Governors, I am responsible for protecting the University’s mission and independence and supporting the leaders in whom the Board has confidence, and we have full confidence in President Varlotta. I have worked hard to fulfill those responsibilities throughout this dispute—a dispute that is harming not only President Varlotta but the University we hired her to lead. I know I cannot prevent all that harm. What I can do is continue to share my firsthand observations and key documents, with President Varlotta’s consent, of course, about what has occurred and continues to occur.
In the fall of 2025, the Board’s Finance Committee and I asked President Varlotta and her team to examine the Coalition for the Common Good’s finances, governance, shared services, and progress toward its goals. When the resulting analysis raised difficult questions, Dr. Comerford responded with personal criticism and directives to alter the framing. He attributed the finance materials to President Varlotta even though he was well aware that then-AU CFO Jim Hyatt had developed them. In a series of texts, emails, and voicemails, Comerford attributed personal motives and characteristics to President Varlotta, using terms such as “an absolute affront,” “a full disavowal of the work we have been doing,” “manipulative,” and “biased.” Referring to me in particular, Comerford added, “You [Lori] have chosen the wrong horse [me]. Please stop.”
The pressure continued as the analysis was being readied for both the AU and CCG Board meetings. On February 27, after the CCG Finance Committee materials had been distributed, Comerford told President Varlotta and AU CFO Jim Hyatt that before any meeting would be held or any materials provided for CCG distribution, they needed to “get on the same page” with him. CCG Board Chair Dan Gifford reinforced Comerford’s directive. Late that same evening, Gifford postponed the CCG Finance Committee and Board meetings and directed that the AU materials’ “substance and framing” be revised to align with Comerford’s views.
Approximately one week later, Comerford provided detailed edits and a redlined copy of Antioch’s Board Book to AU Board and university leaders. He characterized the analysis as “partial and biased” and as “cherry pick[ing] data.”
On March 29, after Comerford had criticized Varlotta for the analysis, asked her not to share the Board Book she and her team had prepared, and worked with the CCG Chair to postpone the CCG Finance Committee meeting, President Varlotta filed an internal HR complaint. She alleged intimidation, interference with her presidential authority, retaliation, and gender-based disparate treatment. I remember how distraught she was when she told me she felt she had no choice but to file a complaint. She shared with me that she had never filed a complaint against anyone in her 41-year academic career. I found it deeply troubling that the environment at CCG had led our president to seek protections that any coalition committed to social justice should offer freely.
The events that followed heightened my concern even more. At their April 6 meeting, just three days after CCG leaders were notified of President Varlotta’s complaint, Comerford, Gifford, and CCG Board Vice Chair Charlene Moore Hayes advanced five resolutions to restrict the authority of President Varlotta and the governing bodies from which she receives support and direction: the AU Standing Committee and the AU Board of Governors. Before the meeting concluded, three resolutions had been approved for implementation. One authorized the hiring of an SSO Director of Operations and CCG CIO, an action that became significant just two weeks later.
Meanwhile, President Varlotta’s request to the CCG Board for interim protections against retaliation for filing her complaint was rejected. Comerford continued to exercise authority over President Varlotta while the official complaint concerning his conduct remained unresolved. On April 20, Comerford unilaterally canceled the Board-approved CIO search. He did so without obtaining approval from the CCG Board that had just authorized the hire or notifying President Varlotta, who had expressed strong interest in filling the position.
But the adverse actions did not stop there. CCG leadership escalated its efforts to limit Antioch’s voice, vote, and authority. At 4:30 PM ET on Friday, May 29, the CCG Chair and Vice Chair emailed both the CCG and AU Boards to announce that the CCG Board might vote to dissolve Antioch’s Board of Governors at its June 30 meeting. The email came as a complete surprise. Neither Board had discussed the idea, let alone seen any proposal for such a drastic action.
My concerns deepened on June 23, when an independent investigator substantiated that Comerford had treated and spoken to President Varlotta in an unprofessional and verbally intimidating manner. The investigator also found that the cumulative effect of his behavior impaired her ability to perform her duties. Four independent witnesses corroborated the unprofessional and intimidating conduct.
Those findings should have warranted serious attention to Comerford’s behavior and the conditions under which President Varlotta was expected to lead. But that does not appear to have happened. After learning that the independent investigation had produced findings but that no interim protections would be put in place, President Varlotta decided to file an external complaint. Feeling abandoned by CCG’s failure to offer protections, she filed a discrimination and retaliation complaint with California’s Civil Rights Department (CRD). Filing that complaint was legally protected activity.
Even that did not deter CCG leadership. In fact, the threats escalated. Within an hour of learning about President Varlotta’s California complaint, the CCG Chair and Vice Chair issued warnings threatening her employment. The first arrived on Friday night, June 26, approximately 50 minutes after CCG received notice of her CRD complaint. She was given exactly one business day to respond, over a weekend when she was presiding over Antioch’s Los Angeles Commencement. President Varlotta met that deadline, just as she had met the other extraordinarily tight deadlines CCG leadership had imposed on her.
The second warning came on July 10. Again, its timing was troubling. It arrived one day after President Varlotta notified CCG that she would be taking bereavement leave, and the response deadline (which she also met) fell during that leave. The timing does not, by itself, establish retaliation. But it makes the need for a fair and independent review especially important.
I have yet to see that fairness and independence in CCG’s review process. In fact, an appeal process CCG has been attempting to establish identifies both the Chair and Vice Chair as two of the four CCG directors who would hear the case. I find it difficult to imagine how these two leaders could be objective and impartial when they themselves are named in President Varlotta’s complaints.
Before the appeal was even underway, Comerford wrote to all 40+ CCG, Antioch, and Otterbein Board members stating that the investigation of President Varlotta’s initial complaint had found no evidence of harassment, retaliation, or gender discrimination. His message omitted key facts. Comerford made no mention that the third-party investigator had substantiated findings of intimidation and threatening language. This same neutral investigator, hired by the CCG, also found that the cumulative effect of Comerford’s behavior impaired President Varlotta’s ability to perform her duties.
I considered that account incomplete in a way that mattered. Before the appeal even got underway, Board members were left to believe the three-month investigation had exonerated Comerford. That is not what it found.
When is enough enough? Apparently not until the target of the adverse behavior is subjected to even more punishing treatment. Given President Varlotta’s strength, I do not feel comfortable using the word victim to describe her.
Perhaps it is because of her resilience, not despite it, that CCG leadership continued to escalate the threats against her.
Those new threats came quickly and sequentially on August 28. First, President Varlotta was excluded from a special CCG Board meeting, receiving notice only 22 hours before it began. The meeting was a critical one. CCG leaders approved resolutions purporting to dissolve Antioch’s Board, take control of its finances and relationship with its accreditor, and cancel CCG Board-ordered mediation. Later that same day, Antioch’s Board of Governors filed its complaint seeking emergency court relief.
About an hour after CCG was served with the complaint, Comerford—who, in my view, lacked the authority to do so—sent President Varlotta a separation agreement purporting to end her employment on September 18. On the next business day, CCG placed her on paid administrative leave, removed her duties and systems access, and instructed her Cabinet not to accept her direction. I believe that action also exceeded CCG leadership’s authority under the governing agreements.
The following day, after the court issued a temporary restraining order, CCG rescinded the leave and restored her duties and access. In just three days, Comerford and CCG leadership had sent the AU President three completely different notices about her employment status.
And these are the leaders who claim they should be running Antioch? I find that astonishing.
Faced with continuing threats from CCG leadership, President Varlotta felt compelled to file a lawsuit. On September 25, she did just that. Her 87-page complaint can be found here.
In his September 29 interview with Higher Ed Dive, Comerford declined to discuss the specifics of the HR complaint, but declared, “My conduct towards Lori was always professional, will always be professional.” That blanket claim stands in direct conflict with the independent investigator’s substantiated findings. Is this what Comerford thinks truth and accountability look like?
My support for President Varlotta is not a request to exempt her from evaluation or scrutiny. It is a call for what any university president should receive: clear authority, a fair process, accurate information, and a workplace in which concerns can be raised without undermining the ability to lead.
Antioch’s Board has a duty to protect the University and ensure that its president can carry out the responsibilities entrusted to her. Our efforts to do exactly that have been blocked at every turn by CCG leadership. Note that I say “leadership,” because I am told that not a single one of the adverse employment actions taken against President Varlotta was discussed at a CCG Board meeting, much less approved by Board resolution.
If this is how CCG leaders treat one Antioch truth-teller, what message does that send to every Antiochian who sees a problem and considers speaking up? A university committed to truth and justice cannot ask its community to stay silent when the facts are difficult.
As Board Chair, I will stand with President Varlotta, defend Antioch’s independence, and insist that hard questions be met with evidence and a fair process. Our community deserves the freedom to speak candidly and the leadership to act on what the evidence shows.
Steve Crandall
Chair, Antioch University Board of Governors