Renowned Western scholar sues CU for access to her life's work

The founder of the University of Colorado's Center for the American West filed a lawsuit against the university for refusing her access to nearly half-a-century of work after she was fired.

Patricia Limerick said that the body of work includes writings and papers she compiled for the center as well as "fabled recommendations" she wrote for other people and even reports to the Board, which she said she spent hours writing.

"They were well written glimpses of Western issues. Adventures of meeting interesting people. I wrote them with an unusual degree of humor and charm," she told The Denver Gazette.

She called herself an "odd duck" in that these types of details are still very important to her as a historian and as a keeper of the flame teaching young historians. She said that she still doesn't understand why she was terminated.

The complaint, filed Thursday, stated that the university wants to retain ownership and control over Limerick's life’s work.

"The University’s official stance — that it owns the ideas, writings, and research of those it employs — poses a clear impediment to the robust and academic scholarship that is the foundation of CU’s reputation and well-being," according to a press release from the law firm of Garnett, Powell, Maximon, Barlow.

Her attorney, Stan Garnett, said she owns the work.

"It’s all at the Center and elsewhere at the university. The university wouldn’t even give her access to see it," said Garnett.

Added Limerick: "The university is keeping the Center of the American West alive. But it’s weird that they are still coasting on my efforts. I thought I could trust universities."

CU Boulder did not return requests for comment on the lawsuit by press time.

Limerick is not seeking monetary damages, only the body of her work. As recently as April 11, the university maintained that it wants to “retain control” over the writings which she developed over her career at the Center, according to the complaint.

Limerick was fired as faculty director from the Center for the American West in September of 2022. She founded the organization in 1986.

Her departure sparked outrage among academia around the globe. At the time, more than 300 people signed a letter of disappointment about Limerick’s firing addressed to CU leadership.

Limerick said that when she was fired, the university announced her departure in a digital message which was took off like wildfire, forwarded all over the country.

"The next morning, I received hundreds of messages from people saying how much they liked me and how angry they were with the university," Limerick said.

During her tenure, Limerick secured grants from the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation for the Center. Over the years, she raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Center of the American West.

Today, Limerick runs The Applied History Initiative, which is an organization formed on an idea she had three months after she was fired. It is also based on the CU Boulder campus and brings young historians into the field.

The young minds are a big reason why she's suing the university, Garnett said, "for herself and for other academics who are coming up also may need this protection, particularly in the humanities."