Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents Chief of Staff to the Board Dean Gould speaks during a special meeting, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020.
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020 | 3:17 p.m.
The Nevada Board of Regents has hired an outside attorney to provide “advice and counsel” on a public conflict between a regent and the state System of Higher Education’s chief of staff.
Board Chairman Mark Doubrava said the lawyer, Apalla U. Chopra, a partner at the O'Melveny and Myers law firm in Los Angeles, is expert in employment law.
She has also regularly represented institutions of higher education, he said.
It was not clear what kind of advice the board was seeking.
Regent Lisa Levine and Chief of Staff Dean Gould, who is also the board’s special counsel, have clashed twice at recent meetings.
The conflict started at a July 23 meeting when Gould admonished Levine for discussing an item not on the board’s agenda. Gould said he was trying to protect the board from a possible open meetings law violation.
Levine shot back, “I’m not finished, but I will try not to lecture or be mansplained again.”
In a subsequent statement, Gould said he found the "mansplaining" comment "unprofessional and embarrassing" and "not an appropriate way for an employer to speak to an employee."
The two butted heads again at a meeting on Aug. 7 when Gould accused Levine of “child-speak” and threatened to “man-speak” if she continued.
“I don’t want to man-speak but I will have to if you continue to child-speak, so please stop,” Gould said in an exchange that ended up on Twitter.
Gould later issued a statement saying Levine was “disrupting the defined procedural process” during an attempt to take a roll call vote and he became frustrated at “her lack of decorum.”
“In retrospect, I should not have stooped to her level of acrimony,” he said.
Gould said his reaction was in response to the previous clash he had with Levine.
Doubrava said he could not comment on either of the events because they involve a “private and confidential personnel matter.”
“That said, the board is taking seriously those events and related issues,” Doubrava said in a statement.
