Ohio State president resigns after rebuke

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio State University President Gordon Gee abruptly announced his retirement Tuesday after he came under fire for jokingly referring to "those damn Catholics" at Notre Dame and poking fun at the academic quality of other schools.

The remarks were first reported last week by the Associated Press, and Ohio State at the time called them unacceptable and said it had placed Gee on a "remediation plan" to change his behavior.

Gee, 69, said in a teleconference that the furor was only part of his decision to retire, which he said he had been considering for a while. He said his age and the start of a long-term planning process at the university were also factors.

"I live in turbulent times and I've had a lot of headwinds, and so almost every occasion, I have just moved on," he said. Gee explained away the abrupt timing by saying he was "quirky as hell" and hated long transitions.

Gee has served as Ohio State's president for two terms, from 1990 to 97 and 2007 to now.

According to a recording of a Dec. 5 meeting obtained by the AP under a public records request, Gee, a Mormon, said Notre Dame was never invited to join the Big Ten athletic conference because "you just can't trust those damn Catholics."

Gee also took shots at schools in the Southeastern Conference and the University of Louisville, according to the recording of the meeting of the school's Athletic Council.

Gee apologized when the comments were disclosed, saying they were "a poor attempt at humor and entirely inappropriate."

His decision to retire was first reported by the Columbus Dispatch.

Robert Schottenstein, who as chairman of the university's board of trustees condemned the remarks last week as "wholly unacceptable" and "not presidential in nature," deflected questions about whether Gee had been forced out by the board.

"It's really about a decision to retire for the reasons that Gordon has articulated," Schottenstein said.

Ohio State, one of the biggest universities in the nation, with 65,000 students, named provost Joseph Alutto as interim president.

Ohio State trustees learned of Gee's latest remarks in January and created the remediation plan. In a March 11 letter, the trustees warned that any repeat offenses could lead to his firing and ordered him to apologize to those he offended. But it appeared that several of Gee's apologies came only in the last week or so as the school prepared to respond to the AP's inquiries.