Professor Phillip Spiegel will get $993,000 in damages and attorneys' fees for dropping the lawsuit. He also will get his $108,000 salary, plus benefits this year.

      TALLAHASSEE - As University of South Florida leaders agreed Thursday to pay a dissident professor more that $1-million to go away, they denied that the high payment meant they had done anything wrong.
      The payment was made to Dr. Phillip Spiegel, an orthopedic surgeon who as at the center of one of the controversies that plagued USF's medical school over the past four years.
      Spiegel has sued two USF administrators in federal court, claiming they violated his rights to free speech and punished him for his dissenting views when he was removed from a department chairmanship.
      USF and state officials agreed to pay Spiegel $993,000 in damages and attorneys' fees if he dropped the suit. USF also will pay Spiegel all of his $108,000 annual salary, plus benefits, even though he won't have to work between June 18 and his official resignation on Sept. 30. That pushes the total value of the settlement to more than $1-million, said Spiegel's attorney, Steven Yerrid.
      USF will pay about two-thirds of the settlement from a salary fund for faculty doctors. The rest will be paid by the state's self-insurance fund.
      In addition, USF has spent more that $542,815 in outside legal fees defending itself in various legal actions brought by Spiegel, general counsel Bryan Burgess said.
      Spiegel's lawsuit was scheduled to go to trials in July, but several university officials said Thursday that it was worth the million dollar settlement just to get Spiegel out of their hair.
      "It is far more important for me to separate the university from that past history, including Dr. Spiegel," said Clint Brown, chairman of the state Board of Regents. "Now he's gone. And that, to me, is a major accomplishment."
      Yerrid said it was odd that USF officials were so eager to lose a faculty doctor who had built one of the medical school's most prestigious departments.
      Yerrid also released copies of recent sworn interviews with university officials that seemed to indicate a number of weaknesses and contradictions in USF's case.
      For example, USF president Frank Borkowski and vice president Ronald Kaufman agreed in separate pretrial testimony that is would have been legally wrong to remove Spiegel from his job simply because of his outspoken views. Spiegel opposed a new comprehensive medical clinic that Kaufman supported.
      Both men denied ever discussing that Spiegel should be removed for that reason.
      But in another sworn interview, former medical dean Wilton Bunch said Spiegel's dissenting views were indeed a major factor in his problems with Kaufman. Kaufman had told Bunch about his problems with Spiegel's numerous times and said he could no longer work with him, Bunch said.
      Bunch said it was clear that Kaufman wanted Spiegel fired because of his opposition to Kaufman's plans.

05/15/92