“Feted ex-Minnesota Vikings player and dad Sullivan “Tripp” Welborne, the 57-year-old dean of athletics at the Lawrenceville School outside Princeton, created a top job for illicit paramour Nicole Stock, 38 — and threw in an ATV for her to ride around the tony campus to boot, according to the Mercer County Superior Court lawsuit filed Friday.”
What is going on at Lawrenceville??
This is from the same school that let two suicides in one year occur under its watch in 2022. Something is deeply, deeply wrong with the administration’s culture there.
This is an employment dispute, not necessarily a “scandal”. It’s a little surprising that there is no policy that prohibits a reporting relationship between two people who are romantically involved – this is a pretty common restriction in most organizations, not just schools.
Without familiarity with the details, it’s easy to imagine that the seemingly inappropriate relationship will allow the plaintiffs to prevail . Otoh, had there been no relationship, it’s easy to imagine that the plaintiffs were the unfortunate victims of a legitimate reorganization.
BS present some especially challenging tensions when it comes to longtime employees. These are often folks who have lived on campus, have served in multiple roles over their tenure, and who are both a part of and keepers of the culture. As the schools evolve (as they must), so do the jobs and these longtime employees may no longer be ideal fits for their jobs. Whether this is the case here isn’t clear, but it’s understandable that employees who have “done their time” for decades in a residential community would feel betrayed in any case, and especially one involving a romantic relationship.
It seems Lawrenceville will be slapped with lawsuits from left and right.