Ethics expert slams U of Manitoba for lack of legal action against law dean accused of misspending

An ethics expert at the University of Manitoba says he's angry the post-secondary institution hasn't pursued legal action to recoup about half a million dollars a former law dean allegedly misspent — most of which was meant for students.  

It "makes one's blood boil" that the university didn't take legal action against Jonathan Black-Branch, said Prof. Arthur Schafer.

"Their failure to be accountable to any extent irresistibly raises the suspicion that they're afraid of any public hearing and about what it will reveal about the university [and] its procedures," said Schafer, who is the founding director of the U of M's Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics.

A civil lawsuit or criminal investigation would expose the university to "public scrutiny" of how administrators handled the money troubles, he notes.

Black-Branch suddenly went on leave in May 2020. A whistleblower complaint led to an internal investigation by the U of M around the same time, which found that summer that a senior university employee misspent university funds.

The university didn't publicly name Black-Branch at the time, but filed a complaint with the law society in 2020. 

A Law Society of Manitoba's disciplinary panel is now deliberating over whether to suspend, reprimand, disbar or clear Black-Branch after he allegedly misspent about $500,000 during his time as dean, most of it from a U of M endowment fund he oversaw that was earmarked for student development.

In a statement, the university said it decided not to pursue legal action "after a thorough assessment of its options," instead opting to file the law society complaint.

Winnipeg police said they didn't investigate and no report was ever made to the financial crimes unit.

A U of M law school graduate who was a student research assistant of Black-Branch's in 2019 says he's disappointed his alma mater isn't doing more to hold the former dean to account.

"You can walk and chew gum at the same time, and they seem to have just been content with kind of putting all the work onto someone else — the law society — to produce justice rather than pursuing him themselves," said Adam Lakusta, now an intellectual property lawyer in Alberta.

Lakusta said he doesn't "hold [Black-Branch] in any sort of respect anymore."

"For him to lecture everyone on integrity and honesty in the profession seems beyond hypocritical," he said.

The law society alleges Black-Branch misspent $472,000 for his own professional development courses at Ivy League schools, misrepresenting circumstances around thousands of dollars worth of meals expensed to the university, and manipulating internal processes to have the U of M pay $75,000 to a foundation he was president of.