Four years after former Republican congressman Elton Gallegly sued California Lutheran University for allegedly violating an agreement on how to run his namesake campus public service center and archive, the two parties have settled out of court.

“We are grateful for the honest conversations and mutual goodwill that brought us to this resolution,” Gallegly, who represented Ventura County from 1987 to 2013, said Monday in a joint statement with CLU president John Nues. “We have confidence in CLU’s leadership, its stewardship of philanthropic contributions, and its ongoing dedication to civic engagement and educating the next generation of public servants and leaders.”

The details of the settlement are confidential. But it concludes a years-long clash between Gallegly and CLU over the establishment and management of the Elton Gallegly Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement. Gallegly filed a lawsuit against CLU in 2021 and, according to court records, coordinated a public pressure campaign against Lori Varlotta, CLU’s former president, who resigned last year.

The idea for the center came about in 2012, after CLU asked Gallegly if he would donate his political papers to the university and make them publicly accessible for archival research. Court records show that the university and Gallegly verbally discussed plans to build the center, which would include a replica of the congressman’s office, on CLU’s campus. They also agreed to launch a public service fellowship and speaker series and to digitize Gallegly’s archive.

That was the plan that Gallegly, who helped raise nearly $1 million for the center, pitched to donors.

However, neither the written deposit agreement he signed in 2012 nor the gift agreement he signed in 2017 required CLU to digitize the 450 cubic feet of donated material related to Gallegly’s political career, or carry out any of the other plans he’d discussed for the center. Instead, the agreements simply said CLU would take possession of Gallegly’s office furniture and records and “arrange, preserve, and catalog” them; the only mention of digitization in the 2017 agreement gave the university license to “digitize the archival collection or use any technological substitutes the CLU library deems appropriate to preserve and provide access to the archival collection.”

In keeping with the verbal agreement, the university awarded 10 fellowships between 2013 and 2022, when it paused the program due to a lack of funds, Inside Higher Ed reported in 2023. Despite political objections from some students and faculty, the center opened in 2018. It originally had a replica of Gallegly’s office on display, but the university later put the furniture in storage to make room for the Gallegly archive, which took years to prepare for public use. During the archiving process, CLU said it realized it didn’t have the roughly $330,000 needed to digitize all the materials and opted to keep the records accessible for in-person research only.

Gallegly considered that a breach of contract, and he and his wife, Janice, sued the university in 2021 for failing to digitize the records, among other perceived violations of their agreement. Gallegly’s supporters also suggested—in local news articles and in a 2023 letter from donors demanding their money back—that putting the replica office in storage and not digitizing his papers were evidence of a politically motivated effort against a Republican politician.

“It is crystal clear that the current CLU executive staff has orchestrated and engaged in a behind-the-scenes effort to CANCEL Congressman Gallegly, obliterating his record of service, his invaluable papers, possessions and public service legacy,” donors wrote in a letter to the university in 2023, demanding refunds and a full accounting of how their money had been spent.

Attack on Former CLU President

But those public criticisms weren’t organic, according to emails that surfaced during the litigation process. Instead, communication records contained in court filings show that the Galleglys spearheaded the ghostwriting of dozens of letters sent to CLU’s Board of Regents and published in local newspapers accusing Varlotta, who became CLU’s president in 2020, of intentionally undermining the center’s mission.

“My fear is that Valotta [sic] has apparently made serious commitments to her left rebels,” Elton Gallegly wrote in a 2021 email to a public relations consultant who helped him wage the media campaign against Varlotta. “I believe she has no choice but to come to [the] table and pressure is [the] only thing that will make that happen. We have power in the community. Remember I’ve lived here for 54 years, she has been here less than 1 1/2 years. She is a feminist bully.”

Other written communication contained in court filings show that the Galleglys and their supporters wanted to derail Varlotta’s 2022 inauguration event by circulating negative press about her handling of the center to local and national media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Another supporter wrote about plans to “destroy” Varlotta’s life and career and “hang her in effigy.”

In 2024, a Ventura County judge ruled in favor of CLU in one phase of the lawsuit, finding that the parties failed to establish a charitable trust, according to The Ventura County Star. In January, the Galleglys’ attorney said the couple was in talks with CLU about a settlement; in March the university filed a motion for a summary judgment for the remainder of the case, and a hearing was scheduled for later this month.

“I have mixed feelings about the settlement. On the one hand, I am glad that this four-year, multimillion dollar suit is over. On the other hand, I am troubled that the settlement came at the 11th and a half hour,” Varlotta, now president of Antioch University, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed Tuesday afternoon.

“By all accounts, CLU was primed to win this case,” Varlotta said. “Settling right before an anticipated legal win raises a troubling question: can plaintiffs launch a years-long smear campaign to damage an institution and its leaders and walk away without consequence?”

The law firm representing the Galleglys did not respond to a request for comment about the settlement by press time Tuesday.

Now that the case is settled, Nues, CLU’s current president, said the university is “excited about the renewed energy and focus around CLU’s Gallegly Center.”

“The Center has the potential to provide a much-needed forum that fosters civil discourse and encourages the exploration of differing viewpoints where students, faculty, and the CLU community can engage in thoughtful, respectful dialogue on a wide range of topics, including socially, politically, and culturally sensitive issues,” he wrote in the joint statement with Gallegly. “We remain hopeful in promoting dialogue that not only cultivates critical thinking and analytical skills but also strengthens empathy, mutual respect, and civic responsibility.”

A university spokesperson declined to answer Inside Higher Ed’s questions about how the center will operate moving forward.