Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law is facing a lawsuit from its former dean, Paul Paton, who alleges he was fired because he’s gay, and that the university used a pretextual budget dispute to cover its tracks.
The complaint (available below), filed June 1 in Orange County Superior Court, lays out a meticulous narrative: Paton, the first openly gay dean in Chapman law school history, was hired in 2023, married his husband in October 2024, and was removed as dean less than a year later. The stated reason? That he awarded too many scholarships without proper approval. Paton’s position is that this is, to borrow a faculty member’s characterization, “a load of BS.”
“I believe that my termination as Dean was discriminatory and retaliatory,” Paton said in a statement. “I am proud of what we accomplished during my relatively short time as dean—admitting the three strongest classes ever, achieving the highest ranking for the law school nationally since 2012, having no students transfer out in 2025—for the first time in recent memory, changing a culture and retooling for success. I had hoped to be able to do more.”
To get a more fulsome picture of this lawsuit, you need some Chapman context, and that context involves a name ATL readers will recognize: John Eastman. Eastman, Chapman’s former law dean, was chair of the National Organization for Marriage, argued against same-sex marriage in California and nationally, and later became one of the architects of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He was disbarred by the California State Bar in 2024. Chapman “reached an agreement” to let Eastman retire from its faculty in early 2021.
The complaint draws the contrast between Eastman’s treatment and Paton’s with some pointed precision: “Chapman has to date extended better treatment to Eastman than to Paton.” The complaint also notes that certain members of Chapman’s Board of Trustees “remained staunch advocates and allies of Eastman” even after Paton’s arrival, a fact Paton discovered when he was critical of Eastman on issues entirely unrelated to Eastman’s views on marriage.
The complaint’s theory of the case is that Chapman’s conservative board members and donors were never particularly thrilled about having an openly gay dean, quietly tolerated the situation, then used the Trump administration’s DEI rollback rhetoric as cover to dismantle the university’s DEI infrastructure in the spring of 2025. Then, after a strategic delay to avoid the appearance of obvious discrimination, fired Paton that fall.
That delay is spelled out explicitly: the same decision makers who terminated Chapman’s DEI office and its Provost in March 2025 “either recognized and/or were advised that they could not get rid of Paton at the same time. That would be too obvious and discriminatory per se. As such, they laid in wait for approximately six months before terminating Paton as the Dean of the law school based on wholly pretextual and bogus grounds.”
The discrimination, per the complaint, didn’t start with the termination. It allegedly started almost immediately after Paton arrived. His sexual orientation was notably absent from Chapman’s public announcements about his appointment, in contrast to how the university handled other hires. After Paton married his husband in October 2024, his spouse was routinely excluded from university functions unless Paton specifically asked — and even then, his husband’s name tag often had to be handwritten while everyone else’s was pre-printed.
The most striking moment in the complaint involves Board Chair James Burra. When a professor publicly congratulated Paton at a university event days after his October 2024 wedding, the complaint alleges Burra’s face registered “shock.” At the dinner immediately afterward, Burra sat next to Paton’s husband and said, “I thought you guys were just really good friends.” He then said nothing further to either of them for the rest of the evening, a stark change from his previous warmth, which had previously included an enthusiastic invitation to come see his collection of vintage Corvettes. That invitation was never repeated.
The termination letter, delivered on October 1, 2025, cited scholarship overspending: “due to FSOL’s awarding of scholarships well in excess of budget without any conversation with (or approval from) senior leadership, effective financial oversight of FSOL by a new dean is required.”
Chapman has doubled down on this position. A university spokesperson said in a statement, “The university did not discriminate against Paul Paton. The university’s decision to remove Mr. Paton as dean was based solely on its assessment that effective financial oversight by a new dean was required. Mr. Paton remains an active and valued member of the law school faculty.”
The complaint has a few problems with this explanation. Paton was never asked a single question about scholarships before or after his termination, and was given no opportunity to respond. And perhaps most awkwardly for Chapman: the law school ran a $2 million budget surplus the year before, and over a $1 million surplus in 2024-25. The complaint pointedly notes that the alleged scholarship overspend equals “the same amount as the surplus he had previously been praised for saving.”
The complaint further alleges that Chapman’s budgeting model actually depended on students losing their scholarships due to the mandatory grading curve, and on top of students transferring out after their first year, and that Paton’s success in preventing both of those things is what created the alleged “shortfall.”
Faculty weren’t buying the financial rationale either. At a special meeting called less than a week after Paton’s removal, administration presented what the complaint describes as a “new dire financial situation at FSOL.” Faculty, who knew about the prior surpluses, were “understandably offended.” They described Paton’s removal as “devastating” and “outrageous,” and stated bluntly, “this is outright homophobia.”
The complaint brings seven causes of action: breach of written contract, sexual orientation discrimination under FEHA, retaliation under FEHA, failure to conduct a reasonable investigation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, accounting, and failure to pay wages. It seeks economic and noneconomic damages, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees.
Paton’s counsel, Jason Kirby of Kirby & Kirby LLP, declined to provide commentary beyond reiterating that his client “firmly believes in the allegations that we’ve made in the lawsuit,” adding, “It won’t be until we get into discovery that we’re able to determine what happened behind closed doors.”
Paton himself put it plainly, “I built a reputation for ethics and integrity long before I started at Chapman, and I am doing my best not to let what the university has done, and how they’ve done it, define me. But that means taking action.”
Chapman, meanwhile, says the lawsuit is “meritless” and it “intends to vigorously defend” it.
Read the full complaint below.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post Gay Law School Dean Sues For Discrimination, Alleging He Was Fired Because He Married His Husband appeared first on Above the Law.
Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law is facing a lawsuit from its former dean, Paul Paton, who alleges he was fired because he’s gay, and that the university used a pretextual budget dispute to cover its tracks.
The complaint (available below), filed June 1 in Orange County Superior Court, lays out a meticulous narrative: Paton, the first openly gay dean in Chapman law school history, was hired in 2023, married his husband in October 2024, and was removed as dean less than a year later. The stated reason? That he awarded too many scholarships without proper approval. Paton’s position is that this is, to borrow a faculty member’s characterization, “a load of BS.”
“I believe that my termination as Dean was discriminatory and retaliatory,” Paton said in a statement. “I am proud of what we accomplished during my relatively short time as dean—admitting the three strongest classes ever, achieving the highest ranking for the law school nationally since 2012, having no students transfer out in 2025—for the first time in recent memory, changing a culture and retooling for success. I had hoped to be able to do more.”
To get a more fulsome picture of this lawsuit, you need some Chapman context, and that context involves a name ATL readers will recognize: John Eastman. Eastman, Chapman’s former law dean, was chair of the National Organization for Marriage, argued against same-sex marriage in California and nationally, and later became one of the architects of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He was disbarred by the California State Bar in 2024. Chapman “reached an agreement” to let Eastman retire from its faculty in early 2021.
The complaint draws the contrast between Eastman’s treatment and Paton’s with some pointed precision: “Chapman has to date extended better treatment to Eastman than to Paton.” The complaint also notes that certain members of Chapman’s Board of Trustees “remained staunch advocates and allies of Eastman” even after Paton’s arrival, a fact Paton discovered when he was critical of Eastman on issues entirely unrelated to Eastman’s views on marriage.
The complaint’s theory of the case is that Chapman’s conservative board members and donors were never particularly thrilled about having an openly gay dean, quietly tolerated the situation, then used the Trump administration’s DEI rollback rhetoric as cover to dismantle the university’s DEI infrastructure in the spring of 2025. Then, after a strategic delay to avoid the appearance of obvious discrimination, fired Paton that fall.
That delay is spelled out explicitly: the same decision makers who terminated Chapman’s DEI office and its Provost in March 2025 “either recognized and/or were advised that they could not get rid of Paton at the same time. That would be too obvious and discriminatory per se. As such, they laid in wait for approximately six months before terminating Paton as the Dean of the law school based on wholly pretextual and bogus grounds.”
The discrimination, per the complaint, didn’t start with the termination. It allegedly started almost immediately after Paton arrived. His sexual orientation was notably absent from Chapman’s public announcements about his appointment, in contrast to how the university handled other hires. After Paton married his husband in October 2024, his spouse was routinely excluded from university functions unless Paton specifically asked — and even then, his husband’s name tag often had to be handwritten while everyone else’s was pre-printed.
The most striking moment in the complaint involves Board Chair James Burra. When a professor publicly congratulated Paton at a university event days after his October 2024 wedding, the complaint alleges Burra’s face registered “shock.” At the dinner immediately afterward, Burra sat next to Paton’s husband and said, “I thought you guys were just really good friends.” He then said nothing further to either of them for the rest of the evening, a stark change from his previous warmth, which had previously included an enthusiastic invitation to come see his collection of vintage Corvettes. That invitation was never repeated.
The termination letter, delivered on October 1, 2025, cited scholarship overspending: “due to FSOL’s awarding of scholarships well in excess of budget without any conversation with (or approval from) senior leadership, effective financial oversight of FSOL by a new dean is required.”
Chapman has doubled down on this position. A university spokesperson said in a statement, “The university did not discriminate against Paul Paton. The university’s decision to remove Mr. Paton as dean was based solely on its assessment that effective financial oversight by a new dean was required. Mr. Paton remains an active and valued member of the law school faculty.”
The complaint has a few problems with this explanation. Paton was never asked a single question about scholarships before or after his termination, and was given no opportunity to respond. And perhaps most awkwardly for Chapman: the law school ran a $2 million budget surplus the year before, and over a $1 million surplus in 2024-25. The complaint pointedly notes that the alleged scholarship overspend equals “the same amount as the surplus he had previously been praised for saving.”
The complaint further alleges that Chapman’s budgeting model actually depended on students losing their scholarships due to the mandatory grading curve, and on top of students transferring out after their first year, and that Paton’s success in preventing both of those things is what created the alleged “shortfall.”
Faculty weren’t buying the financial rationale either. At a special meeting called less than a week after Paton’s removal, administration presented what the complaint describes as a “new dire financial situation at FSOL.” Faculty, who knew about the prior surpluses, were “understandably offended.” They described Paton’s removal as “devastating” and “outrageous,” and stated bluntly, “this is outright homophobia.”
The complaint brings seven causes of action: breach of written contract, sexual orientation discrimination under FEHA, retaliation under FEHA, failure to conduct a reasonable investigation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, accounting, and failure to pay wages. It seeks economic and noneconomic damages, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees.
Paton’s counsel, Jason Kirby of Kirby & Kirby LLP, declined to provide commentary beyond reiterating that his client “firmly believes in the allegations that we’ve made in the lawsuit,” adding, “It won’t be until we get into discovery that we’re able to determine what happened behind closed doors.”
Paton himself put it plainly, “I built a reputation for ethics and integrity long before I started at Chapman, and I am doing my best not to let what the university has done, and how they’ve done it, define me. But that means taking action.”
Chapman, meanwhile, says the lawsuit is “meritless” and it “intends to vigorously defend” it.
Read the full complaint below.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post Gay Law School Dean Sues For Discrimination, Alleging He Was Fired Because He Married His Husband appeared first on Above the Law.
