(UPDATED, 4:26 p.m., with details on the settlement.)
Boise State University has settled a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former administrator.
Idaho’s Office of Risk Management “contributed” $225,000 to settle Lisa Gardner’s lawsuit against Boise State and its foundation, State Department of Administration Executive Assistant Jenni Stoy told EdNews in an email Tuesday afternoon.
Gardner, the university’s former executive director for alumni relations, filed a lawsuit in April 2025. She said she was fired from her $128,107-a-year job after advocating for female co-workers who she said were victims of age discrimination. In a 2025 tort claim, a precursor to the civil suit, Gardner claimed damages of more than $2.5 million.
The case began winding down in February.
On February 20, attorneys for Gardner and Boise State co-signed a notice of a settlement. “The parties participated in a successful mediation during which all parties reached an agreement to settle all pending claims in this action,” the notice read.
The brief document provided no details on the settlement.
On March 27, the parties signed a follow up agreement. Gardner agreed to drop her case, and all parties agreed to pay their own legal bills.
District Judge Jason Scott dismissed the lawsuit on March 30, calling off a jury trial scheduled to begin in October.
Brady Hall, Gardner’s Boise attorney, had no immediate comment on the settlement. Attorneys for Boise State did not respond to requests for comment. The State Board of Education deferred to Boise State, which also did not respond to EdNews’ request for comment.
In her lawsuit, Gardner did not say she was herself a victim of age discrimination. However, she said she advocated for two female co-workers, both over the age of 40, who missed out on promotions and raises offered to younger colleagues. The lawsuit also said two administrators — David Johnston, Boise State’s assistant vice president for alumni and constituent engagement, and Matthew Ewing, Boise State’s former vice president of university advancement and Boise State Foundation CEO — “promoted multiple younger women to positions or reassigned to them job duties that had belonged to employees who were 40 years of age or older.”
The lawsuit also said a high-ranking, but unidentified, university and foundation official had had “an inappropriate intimate, romantic, or sexual relationship with a younger female employee and subordinate who had recently received a promotion and was reassigned job duties from another university employee over the age of 40.”
Gardner said she was terminated from her alumni relations position in December 2025, as retaliation for speaking out against age discrimination. Gardner had held the post for more than a decade.
The lawsuit listed several defendants, in addition to the university and its foundation: Johnston; current foundation CEO Argia Beristain; and former Boise State President Marlene Tromp.
Gardner filed a second, and similar lawsuit on Feb. 11; this suit listed only the university and the foundation as defendants. Hall filed a motion on March 27 to dismiss this case on his client’s behalf.
