Notre Dame says professor fired over pornography

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The University of Notre Dame says it fired a tenured electrical engineering professor because he improperly spent more than $190,000 in federal grant money and matching university funds to buy cameras and accessories to take pornographic pictures.

Oliver M. Collins contends in his breach of contract lawsuit that the university fired him unjustly and cannot prove that he took the sexually explicit and pornographic images, only that the photographs were stored on computers he was responsible for. He said in his lawsuit that he didn't know the images were on the computer, adding that numerous people had access to the computer.

Collins filed the lawsuit July 12 in U.S. District Court in South Bend, alleging his personal and professional reputation have suffered irreparable harm, that he has been unable to find comparable work and that he has been subjected to public ridicule. He seeks more than $75,000 in damages.

The Roman Catholic school contends in a response filed Aug. 19 that it has incurred damages of more than $140,000 in the case along with the costs of its investigation. It asks the court to order Collins to pay for its costs, including its attorneys' fees.

Collins, who now lives in Key West, Fla., could not be reached for comment because there was no telephone listing for him. A message seeking comment from his attorney, John Ittenbach, an Indianapolis attorney, was left Thursday by The Associated Press.

Collins was a professor at the school from 1995 until he was fired this past June. He had been suspended with pay since Aug. 24, 2009, when he was locked out of his office and lab. A month later he was notified that the university would seek Collins" dismissal for serious cause."

The university contends Collins spent money from a National Science Foundation grant and university matching funds to buy at least seven digital cameras, numerous lenses, surveillance cameras, an oversized printer and computer equipment.

"Collins took many of these cameras and accessories to his home and used them extensively in pursuit of his personal hobby, including taking landscape and pornographic photographs," the university said in its response.

Collins contends in his lawsuit that the university can only fire tenured faculty for serious cause for eight reasons, such as academic dishonesty or plagiarism or misrepresentation of academic credentials, but that the allegations against him didn't fall into any of those categories.

Collins said the university asserted that his conduct constituted "serious disregard for the Catholic character" of the university and caused the university "notorious and public scandal," which are among the eight serious causes that the university can fire professors. But he contends the university failed to show his acts met those two standards.

The university denies that, saying that its academic articles is a document that speaks for itself.

A preliminary pretrial conference is scheduled for Sept. 21 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher Nuechterlein.