IOWA CITY – A dismissed University of Iowa lawyer fired back Wednesday at the investigators and authors of an independent review that harshly criticized his actions in response to an alleged sexual assault on campus.

Former Iowa general counsel Marcus Mills said he was blindsided by the findings and called them unfair.

“I handled this entire matter to the best of my ability and I think with integrity, given the circumstances we were working under,” Mills said.

Iowa president Sally Mason fired Mills and vice president of student services Phillip Jones on Tuesay. Each was faulted for his response to the alleged sexual assault, which involved two former University of Iowa football players.

University spokesman Steve Parrott said Jones and Mills were fired after rejecting Mason’s request for their resignations on Monday.

The firings come two days before Mason is scheduled to meet with the Iowa Board of Regents to discuss the university’s response to the alleged assault. The regents are expected to discuss any possible penalties it will impose on the university on Thursday.

The report particularly criticized Mills’ handling of a letter from the mother of the alleged victim to the university that complained about the university’s response to the alleged assault. In an initial investigation by the Board of Regents, Mills did not provide the letter.

“They say my response was inadequate, but they don’t give a single fact about what my response was,” Mills said. “It wasn’t me sitting and holding certain documents back from anybody. I mean, several people had and knew about this letter.

“The regents investigation at the time didn’t ask for any documents,” Mills said. “They were really looking at policies, procedures and reports. Those are the documents they got from us. Otherwise it was oral interviews.”

Mills said he was interviewed for about 80 minutes by James S. Bryant of the Stolar Partners, who conducted the review and authored the report. The interview was informal and not recorded, Mills said, and he feels as though he and Bryant spoke about the circumstances surrounding the letters “in some detail.”

“He [Bryant] didn’t have the time and he didn’t have the familiarity with the material to sit and go over each one of those documents so I could show him when I had spoken with whom and what we talked about,” Mills said. “I’m trusting somebody in the Stolar group read every piece of paper that was submitted, but I don’t know that.”

Mills said none of his telephone notes were provided to the regents during or after the independent review. He said the investigation would have been better served if he had an opportunity to respond to the findings against him.

“It would have made it a much more thorough and much more fair report,” Mills said.

He declined to comment on any future litigation against the university.

Jones declined to comment on Tuesday, but said he will respond “later on.”

Parrott said he didn’t know if the firings on Tuesday would lessen potential penalties against the university.

“There’s no way to know that,” Parrott said. “I think that President Mason will talk in detail with the Board of Regents (on Thursday), and we’ll wait until then.”

Board president David Miles said he supported Mason’s actions, but declined to say if Mason’s job will be on the line at Thursday’s meeting.

“She has my full support,” Miles said. “I expected her to exercise her executive authority and leadership regarding this matter. Her actions … demonstrate that she has taken the report seriously.”

Asked if Mason could still be fired, Miles said, “I don’t want to deal in hypotheticals.”

The Thursday meeting will specifically deal with Mason’s response to the sexual assault case. The rest of her one-year review at the university was completed last week.

Miles said the effect of the two firings on Thursday’s meeting is unclear.

“Our objective on Thursday is to take action on policies and that’s still what we will do,” Miles said.

Former Iowa football players Abe Satterfield and Cedric Everson face charges in the sexual assault case, which stems from an incident in October 2007. They are scheduled to stand trial on Nov. 3.

Last week, the university received the results of the independent review from St. Louis-based law firm Stolar Partners. The report criticized Mills and Jones for their actions after the alleged assault.

The report said the university’s response was flawed and inadequate, but that there was no attempt to cover up the alleged assault. It cited Jones for denying he knew anything about the case when questioned by the alleged victim’s mother, when documents showed he did.

The report also said he didn’t do enough to deter other student-athletes from bullying and threatening the alleged victim after she complained.

The report singled out Mills for holding back documents related to the case from the Board of Regents and for failing to tell the regents about letters to school officials from the alleged victims’ mother.

“To date, Mills has failed to provide the Investigators with any adequate response to why such actions occurred,” the report said.

Mason also announced interim replacements for Jones and Mills’ positions on Tuesday.

Cedar Rapids attorney Carroll J. Reasoner will serve as general counsel and Tom Rocklin, the university’s vice provost, will fill in for Jones.

In a statement, Mason said the interim appointments “will help restore confidence in the university,” a comment that Parrott said referenced to meetings between the Board of Regents and the university last week.

“In all of this, they [the Regents] said this raised issues of trust,” Parrot said.