Former President’s Lawsuit Against Seton Hall Dismissed

A judge dismissed former Seton Hall University president Joseph Nyre’s lawsuit against his former employer late last week, ending at least part of a two-year legal battle.

Nyre, who led Seton Hall from 2019 to 2023, sued the university in 2024, alleging its Board of Regents retaliated against him in an effort to cover up misconduct by a former chair. In his lawsuit, Nyre also accused the chair of sexually harassing his wife. Both the former chairman, Kevin Marino, and the university have disputed the claims in the lawsuit.

But that doesn’t mean the legal fight is over. 

A year after Nyre sued Seton Hall, the university threw a legal counterpunch with a lawsuit of its own. Seton Hall officials accused Nyre of “illicitly accessing, downloading, maintaining, and later disseminating confidential and proprietary documents, as well as documents protected by the attorney-client and work product privileges, and information after his departure as President of the University.” Nyre allegedly leaked to reporters some of those materials, which showed that current Seton Hall president Monsignor Joseph Reilly knew that disgraced cardinal Theodore McCarrick abused seminarians but failed to report it.

Last February, Cardinal Joseph Tobin announced that the Archdiocese of Newark—which oversees Seton Hall—had hired a law firm to determine what Reilly knew and whether he acted inappropriately by not reporting alleged abuse through necessary Title IX procedures. Both Seton Hall’s lawsuit against Nyre and the review by the Archdiocese of Newark are ongoing.