Jordyn’s Bench: The settlement to Airy V. Ohio U
As thousands of prospective students, nearly 8,000, have visited the Athens campus since last fall, potential students and their families contemplate where these brick roads may take them. As they toured the campus they passed a number of monuments and even a new dedication for Jordyn Airy. She came here much like those students looking to forge their own path, but it ended after only a month at Ohio University.
On Nov. 7, 2023, Ohio U placed a bench outside of Baker Center, near Emeriti Park, to honor and remember Jordyn Airy, who died in a campus dorm in 2019.
Photo provided by Robin Airy.
This comes as one of the elements of the April settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit between Ohio U and the Airy family.
In 2019, Jordyn died in her freshman dorm room and two years later the Airy’s filed a lawsuit for wrongful death, which argued that Ohio U could have prevented Jordyn’s death if it had followed proper standards of care procedures, according to reporting by The New Political. Just before the suit went to trial, the two parties reached a settlement.
Both sides of this lawsuit, Jordyn’s mother, father, sister and step-mother and then, the defense Ohio U Dean of Students Kathy Fahl and Anne Berry Strait of the Ohio Attorney General’s office, came to watch as the plaque reading, “In loving memory of Jordyn Airy Ohio University Bobcat, Class of 2023,” was placed on the green bench atop of newly poured cement. While the bench reads “Class of 2023,” Jordyn never got the chance to walk across the stage at graduation in May 2023.
I was notified of the placement of the plaque on the bench by the family’s lawyer; I could not find anywhere that the university or state publicized the event.
“I guess this is kind of closure,” Brad Airy, Jordyn’s father, said to the gathering of family, lawyers, Ohio University dean of students and myself at the bench’s reveal.
Jordyn’s mother said in a statement that the bench is a reminder of what the university must commit to future Bobcat families.
“The inauguration of Jordyn’s bench was a kind gesture, however, it does not negate my daughter's death. I can only hope going forward Ohio University will implement and comply to adequate policies and procedures in occurrences like Jordyn’s. Had there been proper protocol, the outcome of this situation could have been much different. Our lawsuit was solely about making the changes needed so no other parent and family go through the trauma and suffering that we have.”
The bench is one of the four main aspects of the settlement reached in April.
“Ohio University did a good job of finding an appropriate place for the bench as a memorial to Jordyn," Strait, who represented Ohio U in the lawsuit and who works for the Ohio Attorney General’s office, said in a phone call.
Another part of the settlement included a $140,000 payment to the estate of Jordyn Airy along with a letter of sympathy written to the family by former Ohio U President Hugh Sherman, according to the family’s lawyer Ray Marvar. The university reached a settlement with the family just months before the current university President Lori Gonzalez took office.
The settlement also held the university to a commitment to “change their RA (resident advisor)/RD (resident director) training materials and to include this tragedy as a case study,” according to Marvar.
“This mental health/wellness issue plagues OU as well as every college campus across the country,” Marvar, the Airy family attorney, said in a text message. “The work of Dean of Students Kathy Fahl and her staff is difficult and important work that does not stop with this case.”
“The key is to learn lessons from tragic losses like these that can be mitigated in the future if not avoided with simple, immediate communication that was lacking in this case. “Dialogue not Division!” as the flag banner shouts out at passers by just down from the bench. We can’t change the past, but we can learn lessons from our losses!”
So what has changed since the settlement of the lawsuit and what has changed since 2019?
Ohio U enrollment said 7,837 potential students visited to be exact, so The New Political wanted to find out what has changed since the Airy settlement as incoming students fulfill their housing requirement in the Ohio University dorms.
Specifically, we requested the following under the Ohio Open Records Law, §149.43 et seq. via email:
Does the transition success program still exist at Ohio U and what is its success rate if that is measurable?
Are RA training materials publicly available? If so, I would like to request the training materials pertaining to FERPA and mental health intervention/crisis situations.
If applicable, I would like to request the same training guides for RDs.
Ohio U’s office of University Communications and Marketing (UCM) did not respond to New Political’s open records requests for RA training materials. Ohio’s open records laws, also known as sunshine laws, require state agencies to provide records to the public when requested. These kinds of requests for transparency at places such as public institutions are a part of the democratic checks and balances. Requests made to Ohio U’s office of Legal Affairs were recognized but to this date unfulfilled.
Although UCM was unable to provide any of the requested records it decided only to provide information on Ohio U’s Counselor-in-Residence program. According to UCM, the program “places professionally supervised mental health clinicians directly into OHIO’s residence halls to help address the mental health concerns of both our residential students and our Housing and Residence Life staff.”
Strait, the attorney for Ohio U, said that RA training for this year and the future will include training scenarios based on the circumstances that occurred the day that Jordyn died.
As for updates to the Ohio U student housing handbook, the section labeled “room privacy,” which lays out permissions for university officials to enter a student’s dorm remains the same as it was in 2019. This section reads that “a university official may enter a student’s room without permission under the following circumstances: During an emergency (e.g., fire alarm), To check on the well-being of a resident, To inspect, maintain, and renovate rooms, To address a nuisance to the community.”
As for the existence of the Transition Success Program, of which Jordyn was a member, UCM and Legal Affairs would again not respond to a records request about whether this program still exists, something again very relevant to Airy’s death and transparency to the public. This was a question requested firstly back in March 2023 and then again in November 2023, both times unanswered. However an Ohio U news update from 2019 is still up citing its three years of success.
In an interview with Fahl, she highlighted the greater investment in Ohio U’s Counseling and Psychological Services, along with a massive emphasis on campus and student engagement.
“Mental health is an issue that college campuses across the country are dealing with and so, we want to support and care for our students and think, as I said, holistically and creatively about how to meet the needs of our students,” Fahl said. “And I think we're doing that.”
The university and Fahl were unable to comment on the lawsuit, the settlement and the bench.
While Airy’s family and Airy’s lawyer hope that their measures will ensure another student will not be harmed at Ohio U, the lack of transparency by our own requests is concerning, Ohio U is expected to uphold laws Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost notes: “A democratic government is only as strong as the trust it builds with the people it serves, and trust- building starts with transparency. That means openness in public decision-making and access to records that document the work of public bodies -- as each of us has a right to know what our government is doing in our name and with our money.”
Jordyn’s bench outside of Baker Center facing the pond near Emeriti Park as students prospective and current alike walk passed. Photo by Madeline Harden
The plaque reads “In loving memory of Jordyn Airy Ohio University Bobcat, Class of 2023.” Photo by Madeline Harden
