UA chancellor disputes fired official’s assertions

Ex-top school spokesman quick to fire back

Chris Wyrick (left), vice chancellor for university advancement, and G. David Gearhart, chancellor of the University of Arkansas, talk to reporters Monday at the University of Arkansas to answer questions regarding the recent firing of John Diamond, associate vice chancellor for university relations.
Chris Wyrick (left), vice chancellor for university advancement, and G. David Gearhart, chancellor of the University of Arkansas, talk to reporters Monday at the University of Arkansas to answer questions regarding the recent firing of John Diamond, associate vice chancellor for university relations.

FAYETTEVILLE - The chancellor of the University of Arkansas disputes the assertion by his former chief spokesman that the Fayetteville campus fired him because of disagreements about its openness and accountability to the public, saying Monday that the reasons the sides will part ways include John Diamond’s insubordination.

Diamond was fired Friday as associate vice chancellor for university relations but was told he could remain employed for 30 days while working from his home.

The university released two short statements about the matter Friday but didn’t give a reason for Diamond’s dismissal. Diamond responded to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s requests for comment by citing “strong philosophical and material differences over what it means to bea transparent and publicly accountable university.”

On Monday, with Diamond’s permission, the university released documents illustrating both sides of the story and Chancellor G. David Gearhart held a news conference about the firing with seven of his top administrators in his office.

Diamond asserted in a response letter Monday that he believes the university, in firing him, was retaliatingagainst him because he disagreed with administrators’ handling of a July 22 Freedom of Information request from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette concerning the UA Advancement Division’s multimillion-dollar budget deficit. Gearhart disputed this during the news conference.

The letter was to Vice Chancellor for Advancement Chris Wyrick, and Diamond referred to a meeting he had with Wyrick on Thursday at which he said he reiterated concerns “of what I believe has been a purposeful effort to interfere with the university’s obligations to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests from the news media.

“Some of the reasons youhad been giving me for the delay in response were not legally justifiable,” Diamond wrote Wyrick, “including your statement that you had not yet discussed the response with Chancellor Gearhart because he was ‘preoccupied’ with the upcoming release of the audit report on the Advancement Division.”

The audit into a fiscal-2013 deficit of $3.3 million, which began in March, is expected to be released in September.

Diamond said that Wyrick directed him to provide a single document in response to the request, which asked for correspondence of more than a dozen people since Jan. 1 regarding the deficit and efforts to resolve it.

“I believe the action you took on Friday morning to terminate me in 30 days was in retaliation for pointing out that concern.”

Also, Diamond’s response included assertions that Wyrick has created a “hostile and dysfunctional work environment” with impulsive actions and management of personnel matters.

Diamond had also said Friday that he was fired by text message Friday morning, but Gearhart and Diamond’s direct supervisor, Wyrick, said Monday that there was more to it.

During the news conference and in an emailed memorandum Saturday to the UA board of trustees and UA System President Donald R.Bobbitt, Gearhart said Diamond had become angry and “stormed out” when Wyrick met with him Thursday to reassign him to new duties before firing him at the end of the calendar year.

“Chris attempted to call, text and email Diamond throughout the day in hopes he had cooled down, but Diamond refused to take the callsor respond in any way,” Gearhart wrote to system officials. “On Friday, Chris gave Diamond an opportunity to resign but only received a combative text in return.”

The memorandum to trustees and Bobbitt appears to have been written before Fayetteville campus administrators secured Diamond’s permission to legally release correspondence about his termination from his personnel file.

“Diamond is claiming to the media that he was fired because he had a different philosophy of transparency with the public,” Gearhart wrote in the memo. “In reality, Diamond has always insisted that all communications with the media come through him and that my senior team should not answer any media inquiries directly.

“Any lack of transparency with the media or the public can only be attributed to Diamond’s own failings as that was his primary responsibility.”

In his response letter Monday, Diamond gave the university permission to release the letter “with the condition that this response is released simultaneously with the two letters of termination” the university gave him Friday.

One appeared to be a boilerplate, standard termination letter from Wyrick. It cited a UA board policy, said the reasons for the firing had been explained to Diamond, and asked him to clean out his office during the weekend and turn in his keys Monday.

In the second termination letter, also dated Friday, Wyrick wrote with more specifics, saying that a Thursday meeting with Diamond to reassign him had degenerated into a confrontation.

“You became irate and confrontational,” Wyrick’s letter read in part. “Rather than demonstrate any willingness to maintain a professional and positive working relationship during the reassignment period, you made statements that my leadership is ‘laughable,’ and frankly escalated the discussion to the point that I had to end the conversation.”

Diamond disagreed with Wyrick’s characterization.

“You went to open the door and I said one word: ‘Leadership,’” Diamond wrote in his response letter. “I did not at any time refer to your leadership style as ‘laughable,’ because it is not.”

The Democrat-Gazette’s July 22 freedom of information request asked for the correspondence of numerous UA administrators, including Gearhart and Wyrick, regarding attempts to resolve the Advancement Division deficit and balance the fiscal 2013 and 2014 budgets.

Nearly a month after the newspaper first requested correspondence on the budget deficit, the university responded with a one-page document.

Diamond referred to a July 29 meeting attended by Gearhart, Diamond, the university’s attorneys, and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Don Pederson at which they discussed how to gather information for the request. “As you know, the Chancellor strongly objected to the recommendations we presented.”

“Looking back, that July 29 meeting appears to be the start of when you and possibly others chose to exclude me from being involved in the FOIA process,” wrote Diamond, who had served as the media’s chief liaison when filing such requests. “It also marks the point at which you took over my responsibility for coordinating FOIA queries, doing away with the protocol I had put into place at University Relations.”

Diamond said his protocol included consulting with legal counsel for the best way to put instructions in writing to comply with freedom of information requests, but that Wyrick had asked individuals orally to comply.

“I believe the negative consequences of orally and individually asking for responsive records are obvious: It becomes very easy for individuals to misinterpret exactly what is being asked for as opposed to giving them specific written instructions that are shared uniformly with all possibly affected parties,” Diamond wrote. “That might explain why only one item was submitted to you in response to that request.”

During the news conference, Gearhart disputed this, saying the university had only one responsive document to the newspaper’s freedom of information request and that the request had been so broad as to be “ridiculous.”

The Democrat-Gazette filed an amended request after talking with Diamond about it.

Diamond and Wyrick discussed several issues during the Thursday meeting, which Diamond said was witnessed by Denise Reynolds, Wyrick’s chief financial officer and director of human resources.

Both Diamond and Wyrick wrote that each had felt threatened by the other during their Thursday meeting.

When questioned by reporters Thursday, Wyrick said: “I’m a pretty big guy; I’m not easily threatened.”

When pressed about what it was that he found threatening about Diamond’s response, Wyrick said: “He took an aggressive step towards me is how I’m going to answer that question.”

In his response letter, Diamond also accused Wyrick of making previous inappropriate comments, including referring to a white UA administrator who had attended an April 2013 fundraising dinner for the Black Alumni Society as “Brother Honky.”

Wyrick said that black, former UA athletes had actually given him the nickname “Brother Honky” while he was forging relationships during his fundraising work with the Razorback Foundation.

“That was a nickname given to me, not a nickname that I made up,” Wyrick said.

In response to a question, Wyrick acknowledged he hadused the term himself.

The other top administrators who attended Monday’s news conference in the chancellor’s office conference room included Provost Sharon Gaber; Pederson; and Barbara Abercrombie, who heads the campus human-resources office.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/27/2013

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