A former employee of Washington University filed a lawsuit this January alleging she was wrongfully fired for questioning the validity of purchases related to an $18 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute—a suit that could potentially have larger ramifications for the University regarding grants from both private and public sources.

As a premier research institution, Washington University receives hundreds of million dollars in funding from the federal government. This particular grant stipulated that the University earmark a certain amount of contract purchases from minority-owned vendor and service-disabled veteran owned businesses.

Former Washington University contract management liaison Beth Owen questioned the validity of a purchasing request for RAS Enterprises LLC, a certified minority-owned vendor and service-disabled veteran owned business that she believed to be a middleman for Fisher Scientific, a multibillion dollar laboratory equipment supplier.

Shortly after questioning these purchases, Owen was fired from her position at the University—and she believes these two incidents are related.

With Missouri’s laws regarding wrongful termination, Owen does not have to prove that there was indeed fraud, just that she was fired because of her questioning, Owen’s lawyers, Jeremy D. Hollingshead and Thomas J. Sanfilippo, said.

“It’s something that as the general public, we want people to do because it should not be a terminable offense just to raise questions about what you have reason to believe might be fraud, especially involving the government or any kind of illegal activity,” Sanfilippo said. “As a society, courts want to encourage and provide action for any people who were fired just for raising those concerns, even if those concerns—even if their questions or suspicions are unfounded—as long as they’re brought in good faith and appropriately, that those are questions we want to protect people’s ability to ask.”

While Owen does not have to prove that fraud was committed, the case could have broader implications for Washington University, which relies on grants for research.

“[This lawsuit] could have rippling effects. It could hurt [the University’s] ability to get private funding, for research or otherwise,” Sanfilippo said. “If [the claims of fraud were found true], there could be criminal charges for people involved, but that’s not the point of the suit. The point of the suit is that she raised legitimate concerns that she had good faith to have.”

“Wash. U. obviously very much relies on grants, since it’s a large research institution. A lot of students come from all over the world to Wash. U. because of those grants that allow [the University] to have the absolute best technology, sometimes on the planet with respect to certain fields,” Hollingshead added. “And the government might become a little more questioning as to whether or not they want to give grants to a University if in fact it was proved that some sort of fraudulent activity had taken place with respect to this very large contract.”

Hollingshead noted that Owen made an effort to report this issue to the University before seeking legal recourse.

“Before the lawsuit, she did try to report it up the chain of command, and rather than being met with a ‘You know, we ought to take a look at this and make sure we’re compliant with this grant,’ they instead decided to terminate her. So, she really did go through every conceivable avenue possible before resorting to litigation,” Hollingshead said.

The University, however, believes that Owen’s case lacks merit.

“We are aware of the lawsuit and believe strongly that it is without merit. Because this is a pending legal matter, it is not appropriate to comment any further,” Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Jill Friedman wrote in a statement to Student Life.