(but then, it’s 2026, you should always vet your sources)

There’s been a small and persistent flurry of posts on Facebook discussing the 2021 sex discrimination lawsuit filed against the Montana University System and University of Montana. These posts accurately note that the lawsuit named Seth Bodnar as allegedly contributing to an old boys’ club mentality that interfered with women’s salaries and promotions.

Let’s all agree on the following: All discrimination is wrong, allegations should be taken seriously, and allegations deserve investigation.

But allegations are not facts.

Sadly, numerous Facebook posts, including an Op-Ed piece published in a Montana newspaper, repeat allegations from 2021 to 2024 (when the case was settled). Beyond these allegations, they don’t provide direct, factual evidence. Instead, these writers use a strategy straight from the Trumpian playbook; they take their own thoughts about the sex discrimination allegations and transform them into evidence-free conclusions.

The allegations are, literally, “trumped up” through repetition and re-posting. Then, although Trump uses Truth Social, these narrative builders use Facebook to repeatedly post allegations against Seth (as NPR would say, “without evidence”), and conclude what they already believed and what they want you to believe, that Seth Bodnar is, among other unpleasant characterizations, sexist and misogynistic.

Like Trump, these Facebook posts generally avoid mentioning existing evidence that might contradict mischaracterizations of Bodnar. This leads me to the question of the day:

What’s the evidence, if any, that Seth Bodnar is NOT systematically sexist and misogynistic?

1. According to UM Human Resources, approximately 78% of all employee promotions during Bodnar’s time at UM went to women.
2. Also, according to UM Human Resources, about 59% of all new hires were women.
3. Given that I was on campus during this time, these numbers pass the eye-test. Seth also proportionately hired more women for high level administrative and Dean positions than any UM president before him.
4. On Substack, Mary Kreta, a woman who worked with Seth Bodnar at UM, wrote of her praise of his leadership.
5. A former UM associate Provost wrote of her praise of his treatment of women employees in a letter the Missoulian editor.

These facts and positive testimonials about Seth Bodnar’s treatment of women are easy to find. You can find them using AI. You can find them in the Montana Free Press. And if you were on campus during Seth Bodnar’s presidency, you could have found them by just looking around.

To summarize: So far (there’s more), we have two sources of information:

On one hand, we have sex discrimination allegations. On the other hand, we have Bodnar’s record of women being hired and promoted under his watch as UM President, and testimonials from former female UM employees.  

Bodnar’s record supporting the hiring and promotion of women and testimonials from women about his leadership acumen doesn’t fit the sexist-misogynistic narrative.

My hope is that you’re open to the possibility that there’s more to the story than what you’re reading on social media. Although it’s possible to argue that allegations are more important than facts (people and Presidents do that all the time), I still have faith that most people are actually value facts over rhetoric.

If you’re one of my regular blog readers, you may wonder what this post has to do with counseling and psychology. Although it is out there on the fringe, I think it speaks to the struggles we’re all having around politics and the narratives that somehow seem to take on a life of their own in the absence of data. I also think (and hope) this and my upcoming posts will be examples of my efforts to maintain as much civility as possible while trying to address unfair and derogatory comments directed toward my son-in-law.

I’ll be posting more information about the sex discrimination lawsuit and other claims against Seth’s character. I will offer (a) facts, (b) direct observations as a faculty member during Seth’s time at UM, and (c) my opinions.

The facts, along with my observations as a UM employee throughout the period of the lawsuit, tell a story about Seth Bodnar than what people are reading on Facebook.

Last thing. It’s 2026. We should always vet our sources. That means you should vet me. Can you trust what I’m writing? Do I have a history of honesty? Fortunately, given the paucity of people on the planet who have my name, you can easily find me, my blog, reviews of my teaching (on Ratemyprofessor), as well as personal and professional information out there on the internet.

I won’t tell you to trust me. You should decide that for yourself.