A Loyola student and small business owner says he plans to seek legal action after being dissatisfied with the way he has been treated by the university. Percy Marchand, management sophomore, said he plans to file suit against the university after the Black Student Union refused to reimburse Marchand for approximately $300 he fronted the organization to help last semester’s African-American Student Leadership Conference.The Student Government Association Court of Review recently ruled against Marchand’s demand that BSU reimburse him. Marchand, who served as BSU president last year and recently stepped down as a SGA congressman-at-large, initiated the conference last year. Marchand said the leadership conference was designed to target black college students and is geared toward economic empowerment. This year’s conference consisted of panels and discussions with more than 25 speakers. The theme was The Underground Railroad: Getting Our Futures Back on Track. Aside from his work with the university, Marchand is owner and operator of Marchand Printing, a printing business he began from his home.Marchand said his company and the university sponsored the first conference together. The cost of the first conference was minimal, Marchand said.”The event (the African–American Leadership Conference) … brought the Loyola community a positive spotlight in the media – a stark contrast to the numerous times the university has been focused on for racial and discriminatory matters. I founded the conference to help bring about positive and beneficial change to, not only Loyola University, but the city, state and country as a whole,” Marchand said. Marchand said that his company was the largest sponsor of this year’s conference and that his company donated goods and services totaling about $3,000. Marchand said his company put up an additional $1,900 for the conference because sponsorships were delayed after the Sept. 11 attacks. Marchand said he was reimbursed for most of that money, but has not been paid back for $300 he used to mail promotional materials for the conference. Marchand said he has not been paid back even though the BSU has an $1,100 surplus from the event.Marchand said current BSU president, Reanda Fields, communications junior, accused him of using the postage set aside for the conference to mail literature for his company. Marchand accused the BSU of “not using the sponsorship funds for the intent that they were raised and given.” Marchand said that Fields wanted to continue raising money in the name of the conference but use the money for BSU’s general purposes.Marchand said he told Fields that the conference is intended as a venture independent of BSU and not a fundraiser for the organization.Chris Cameron, director of Student Activities, said the conference is a BSU function. He said, however, that he understands that Marchand founded the conference and feels that it is his “baby.”Marchand said that having nearly $2,000 tied up with the conference harmed his business. “This past July, I was blessed with the opportunity to move my company from my home to a commercial location. Seven months later, I have still not been able to open the new location due to financial constraints. “Unfortunately, I put faith in the Loyola Community that I belong to, and put up the entire cost of the conference, because sponsorship checks had not been processed,” Marchand said.”Marchand confused his role as a student leader with his role as a small business leader,” Cameron said.In refusing to reimburse Marchand’s money, the university has referred to a yet-unwritten university rule prohibiting students from fronting money to university organizations, Marchand said. “This summer, due to the past problems, the Office of Financial Affairs and SGA decided that no students would be advanced money from the university,” Cameron said.”Marchand was on the SGA appropriations committee and should have known about the policy,” Cameron said. Marchand said he learned of this policy recently.Cameron said the BSU did not give Marchand permission to advance money for the conference.Marchand disagreed. “The conference planning and hosting went perfectly according to all of the rules and regulations given by the University and the BSU constitution,” he said.Marchand submitted a request for trial to the Court of Review on Nov. 12, naming Reanda Fields and the BSU as defendants.The request contained three complaints.The first complaint was that Marchand had not been reimbursed for the all the money he put forth for the conference. The complaint said that Fields made the decision not to reimburse Marchand, under the guidance of BSU advisors and against the wishes of the BSU executive board. Marchand’s complaint says Fields’ reason for not giving him the money was that he had already been reimbursed some money from BSU.The complaint says, “Regardless of the amount of the reimbursement, Fields does not have the right to arbitrarily decide how much reimbursement is enough.”The second complaint says that though Marchand turned all of the requisite materials into BSU on Oct. 18, the BSU did not reimburse him until Nov. 9. Marchand said it took longer than necessary to be paid.The third complaint says that Marchand allowed the use of his business’ mailing address list to mail out materials for the conference. The complaint says that after Fields saw the positive response gained by using these addresses to solicit donations, she suggested raising money for BSU’s general purposes by soliciting money from these sponsors under the guise of the conference.Marchand requested the Court of Review order BSU reimburse him the $257 he alleged the BSU owed him, plus $200 for punitive damages.The Court of Review found that Marchand did not present proof that he had permission to front money for the conference. The court opinion says Marchand claimed Fields gave him oral permission to spend the money on behalf of the conference but that during the hearing Fields denied giving such permission. Because of that conflict, the court of review ruled in favor of BSU and absolved the organization of financial responsibility to Marchand. “In my opinion, there are two very different sides of this story, and what I know is what the Court of Review said, and I respect that. I’ll respect the decision and see what happens,” said Mary Flynn, SGA president and finance senior. The court also ruled that Marchand had been reimbursed in a timely matter. As for Marchand’s third complaint, the court ruled that it was outside of its jurisdiction.Cameron said that Marchand was afforded due process through the Court of Review.Marchand said that the court’s opinion was never relayed to him, and that therefore he had no chance to appeal. He said that the grounds of his appeal would have been that he was not informed of his right to counsel and was not allowed to cross-examine Fields during the hearing. He also said that Fields was allowed to explain her case completely during the hearing, while he was not. “My legal advisers have looked at the constitution and policies of the Court of Review, and none of them believe that the rules could have possibly been looked at by a person with a true legal background,” Marchand said. He said he contacted Jim Eiseman, vice president for Student Affairs, multiple times over the course of a week in an attempt to have Eiseman reverse the court’s ruling. Marchand said Eiseman refused to overturn the decision. Eiseman declined to comment for this story.Fields said that she said everything she needed to say to Marchand during the hearing.Marchand said he thinks that the university administration has ignored his attempts to meet and discuss the situation. Marchand also said that university administrators have told him to let the conference go because of his many other involvements and allow the university to run the conference from now on.Marchand said he thinks that the university is attempting to take credit for something that he founded and sponsored. He said that though the university did provide the facility and some financing, there was no
t much support. Marchand said that only one administrator attended the event. “The university, which bragged about its top collegiate entrepreneur in just about all of its promotional materials, turned around and potentially ruined that entrepreneur’s business,” he said. Earlier this week, Marchand began circulating a one-page flyer, titled, “Slavery: From the Cotton Fields to Loyola University,” to Loyola students. Fields said that the flyer contains potentially libelous statements about her and Cameron. Marchand’s flyer lists quotations from both Cameron and Fields. Fields said she was misquoted. She also said she believes that Cameron’s statements were written out of context.Marchand said he believes negotiations with the university have reached a standstill, and he said he is planning to take legal action against the university. Marchand said he plans to file suit seeking the nearly $300 dollars he has not yet been reimbursed, plus additional money for damages.Fields said that BSU has not accused Marchand of anything.She said, “As far as BSU is concerned, this case is closed.”

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