U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan awards former dental student $1.7M

A jury has awarded $1.7 million to a former University of Michigan dental student who claimed the school's associate dean told a series of lies to the faculty, ultimately resulting in her being kicked out of the program. Plaintiff's attorney Deborah Gordon admits she was at first skeptical about

"It was hard to grasp early on that there is this one person at the school manipulating all of this because of a political vendetta with a student," she said.

To convince jurors - who might be skeptical themselves - that a student was telling the truth about a higher-up at a major university, Gordon took a calculated gamble at trial. She held off on cross-examining the associate dean and instead allowed other witnesses to build her up in the jurors' minds as being responsible for the accusations.

Defense attorney Timothy Howlett could not be reached for comment.

'Political brouhaha'

During her second year at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, Alissa Zwick went in for a meeting with the school's associate dean, Dr. Marilyn Lantz. During that meeting, Zwick explained that she had done poorly on the last couple of exams given in a clinic class.