“Emergency” = the kind in which you can legally dial 911, not the kind in which you have a problem with the media.”
You really have to look at the By-Laws that state explicitly what the trustees can and can’t do. The By-Laws often provide exclusions for special cases, such as this. As the president of a board myself, I can tell you that an emergency is usually whatever the director of the board thinks is an emergency.
As this plays out, if the board is trying to isolate themselves from a conspiracy coverup by making snap decisions to discharge anybody and everybody at will then that will be a problem down the road (firings should have been done years ago with complete disassociation, IOW granting privileges on campus was a big mistake).
The entire board should resign, quit, step down, whatever, starting with counsel but the trustees decided to add another layer of obfuscation by hiring a special investigator.
Are Directors allowed to contravene (break) State laws where you live?