Students are angry. Faculty are indignant. Deans are upset. Former trustees are beyond themselves. All told, American University has seen better days.

Since yesterday’s announcement that ousted president Benjamin Ladner would be receiving a severance package totaling almost $4 million, there has been a flurry of activity on all ends of the leafy Northwest campus. Both the university’s student government and a coalition of anti-Ladner activists released statements condemning the settlement, while the faculty and deans at the School of International Service, Washington College of Law, Kogod School of Business, and School of Communications expressed disappointment over the news and demanded reforms in the university’s governance. Four recently-departed trustees joined the fray, penning a scathing letter in which they condemned the “platinum parachute” given to Ladner, stating:

The Board has significantly worsened an already sad chapter in the University’s history. It has lost sight of its true constituency – the students, the faculty and the alumni. The Board has given $3.75 Million to an undeserving individual. Had it earmarked this money for the deserving, Ladner’s platinum parachute could have funded the salary of over three dozen faculty members for a year; provided for almost 200 full tuition scholarships for a year; and provided in perpetuity 10 full scholarships. This is where American University’s resources should go and that is why we voted for no money for Ben Ladner and why ultimately we sadly resigned from the Board.

And now, as expected, comes news on the legal front. George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf, best known for taking on big tobacco and the fast food industry, today announced that American University students and faculty could use a little known legal provision to sue Ladner for his ill-gotten gains. Used once by GWU students to sue former Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew, himself embroiled in a scandal involving questionable funds, the legal precedent allows a group to claim the rights of an entity (the university, in this case) and demand reparations, even if the entity itself chooses not to act. In essence, students and faculty can, as a part of American University, act against Ladner, even if the Board of Trustees chooses not to. Writes Banzhaf:

If a handful of law students and one law professor can successfully take on the State of Maryland and its former governor and a former U.S. vice president, I can’t see why AU’s many capable law professors — especially those who teach clinical law — can’t with student researchers put together an equally effective law suit.

This legal twist may seem like a stretch, but Banzhaf is well known for his creative use of the law against corporations and government. If anything, it proves that the Ladner saga, for better or for worse, is far from over.