Correction: This article failed to make clear the timing of emails Jan. 23 between Diamond and Don Pederson, vice chancellor for finance and administration. The emails were about the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s requests for interpreting records regarding the budget deficit of the UA’s Advancement Division. Pederson emailed first that he had spoken to the chancellor and legal counsel, and he thought “we all feel, provost, chancellor, Dr. Bobbitt and me, that we need to end this dialogue." Diamond sent an email later that day to Pederson, that said in part: “Personally, I think it is unwise to issue a blanket refusal to respond further. …"
The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s fired chief spokesman, John Diamond, recalls a day last winter when Chancellor G. David Gearhart summoned him to a meeting.
Gearhart had acknowledged publicly in early December that UA’s Advancement Division had incurred a multimillion-dollar budget deficit. Diamond’s role included serving as a liaison for reporters who were seeking public records under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
“He didn’t want me talking to the media anymore,” Diamond said this week, adding that Gearhart wanted him to discontinue helping journalists interpret documents that were “essentially raw data.”
Gearhart said on Friday that he disputes Diamond’s account.
Diamond, then associate vice chancellor for University Relations within the Advancement Division, said he told Gearhart that refusing to help reporters navigate the records could result in misinterpretation and that the university would be hard-pressed to call for corrections if it didn’t explain the documents.
When Diamond told Gearhart he was trying to help him, Gearhart became more angry, according to Diamond’s recollection of events.
“He stood up and said, ‘Help me? You think you’ve helped me? Dr. Bobbitt and the trustees have told me to tell John Diamond to shut up,’” he recalled Gearhart saying, referring to Don Bobbitt, president of the UA System.
“That was the beginning of the deterioration of his relationship with me,” Diamond said.
Diamond contends he was fired because of disagreements with UA administrators on handling Freedom of Information requests regarding the deficit. In Diamond’s dismissal letter, UA officials wrote that “the University’s senior leadership had lost faith in you,” and on Monday said his departure was hastened after a confrontation he had with his supervisor, Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Chris Wyrick.
Gearhart said Friday that he doesn’t remember the meeting Diamond described.
“I have never told him he should not speak to the media,” he said during a telephone interview. “There is no foundation to that whatsoever. His whole job was to speak to the media.”
Gearhart said he was following Diamond’s advice when he stopped speaking to journalists about the deficit.
“That’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous,” Gearhart said. “He’s absolutely trying to spin a story his way.”
DIAMOND ‘JABBERED’
Diamond had tested the patience of the chancellor’s senior staff during his time at the university while he “jabbered on in meetings,” talking over others, Gearhart said.
“I will tell you this, but I’ve been in meetings where I’ve told him to let people talk,” Gearhart said of Diamond. “I didn’t tell him to shut up, because that’s a mean-spirited word.”
Later Friday afternoon, Diamond was asked whether he could back up his assertions with documentation.
Diamond emailed photographs of an email thread between himself and Don Pederson, the university’s vice chancellor for finance and administration, on Jan. 23, which Diamond recalls was generated shortly before his meeting with Gearhart. The emails discuss how to handle the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s requests for interpreting records regarding the deficit.
Diamond wrote Pederson, in part: “Personally, I think it is unwise to issue a blanket refusal to respond further, as there will be occasions when we will WANT the opportunity to correct misinterpretations or misunderstandings. In addition, such a blanket response would inflame the situation, making our unwillingness to respond further yet another reason for the media to criticize us and to question the Advancement situation.”
An “unfortunate consequence” of not responding, Diamond wrote, could be accusations by the media, legislators, alumni or other stakeholders that the university was not being responsive or accountable.
According to the email, Pederson responded that he had spoken to the chancellor and legal counsel about the response.
“This is really getting to be harassment in my mind,” Pederson wrote, referring to the newspaper’s requests for information. “I think we all feel, provost, chancellor, Dr. Bobbitt and me, that we need to end this dialogue. They are obviously trying to find something that damages the UA and the chancellor and there is nothing there, as you know.”
Pederson then offered a draft of “what we believe should be the response to Lisa Hammersly,” according to the email, which was referring to a Democrat-Gazette reporter. The draft statement read that university officials had spent “hours and hours” trying to explain the issues to the newspapers’ reporters.
“We can continue to explain it for you, but we cannot understand it for you,” Pederson’s draft statement continued in part, and ended with: “We have no further comment. You may feel free to quote me.”
OFFICIALS QUIT TALKING
Asked whether there were any directives from him or the system’s 10-member board of trustees to shut out media, Bobbitt said earlier this week: “I really can’t comment on them.”
Gearhart and Pederson gave interviews in the days after the first news of the deficit became public. But later in December, the newspaper was told to route questions about the deficit through Diamond.
In January, the university released documents under the state’s Freedom of Information laws that contained draft budget documents full of abbreviations, draft budgets with varying totals, and documents that lacked dates or explanations. Reporters asked for Diamond’s help to interpret some of them.
In early February, Gearhart granted the Democrat-Gazette a single interview, published Feb. 2, regarding the deficit in which he reiterated that the university would not release its internal financial inquiry into the deficit. The Democrat-Gazette successfully sued Feb. 11 to obtain it.
Around the same time, Gearhart asked the state’s Legislative Audit Division to investigate, and university officials began citing the audit when not answering questions about the deficit.
Bobbitt said that “the only time I could imagine having information … basically being kept out of the public glare, if you will,” would be the Legislative Audit Division’s working papers.
“When an audit’s in progress, it wouldn’t be good for anybody to talk about it,” Bobbitt said. “The reason for it is anything you say might be construed as trying to influence things.”
The UA board’s chairman, Jane Rogers of Little Rock, said she has no knowledge of a directive from trustees or Bobbitt on how the Fayetteville campus should handle media requests.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Rogers said. “We feel like Dr. Gearhart, it’s his responsibility, and he’s most capable of handling it.”
Gearhart said Diamond, who was fired last week with 30 days’ notice, is an at-will employee and that his direct supervisor, Chris Wyrick, “certainly has the prerogative to put his own team together.”
Diamond accused Wyrick of making offensive statements, some of which Wyrick apologized for this week and some of which he denied.
Wyrick acknowledged using the term “Brother Honky,”a nickname he said that black former UA athletes gave him as a term of endearment in 2008. He also recalled making a remark about Catholics abstaining from meat on Fridays that offended Diamond.
Wyrick said he meant no harm, not understanding how others might interpret the remarks, and that he would not repeat them.
“I don’t think he has a malicious bone in his body, saying those things,” Gearhart said of Wyrick. “I don’t think he meant those statements as racist or being anti-Catholic. I was raised Catholic.
“He is sort of a full-of-life person, and he teases people, and I think he’s learned his lesson,” the chancellor said of Wyrick. “There was not any malicious intent in his heart. I think he is a good person who wants to do a good job.”
Of Diamond, Gearhart said: “I understand that those are things that Chris shouldn’t do, but to make an issue over that as a reason he was dismissed was frankly pathetic.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/31/2013