Leroy Ervin, one of two University of...

Leroy Ervin, one of two University of Georgia officials being sued by fired teacher Jan Kemp, denied in an Atlanta court that he dismissed Kemp because of her opposition to special treatment for athletes.

Kemp, former English coordinator in the university’s remedial developmental studies program, contends that she was fired in 1983 in retaliation for her opposition to special classroom breaks given star athletes.

Ervin, in his third day on the witness stand, noted that Kemp had threatened to make public her complaints and file a lawsuit even before the non-renewal of her contract. “If I had wanted to keep it quiet, I would not have non-renewed her,” he said.

Under cross-examination, Ervin acknowledged that his name was signed on a grade-change form for an athlete who had been promoted out of developmental studies, despite faculty reservations. The form changed the student’s grade from incomplete to D, even before the overdue work in question had been made up, he said.