Employees only

HERE’S THE LATEST reason/ excuse for keeping public information private at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville:

It seems the prosecutor’s office in Washington County is examining a copy of whatever records UA-F kept as multi-million-dollar deficits were being uncovered in its fund-raising division. Which is just what those prosecutors should be doing after all the troubles that division has bred for Arkansas taxpayers, not to mention loyal supporters and once proud alumni of the university. By now the very name of that division is enough to raise eyebrows across the state, certainly among those who have to keep up with the tangled web it’s woven over the years. This outfit is formally and ironically known as the university’s Advancement Division. (If the way these public funds were handled was advancement, what do you suppose regression would be?)

Innocent Reader might think that, if any bureaucracy in the state would want to be up-front about its finances by now, it would be this “advancement” division of a university that bills itself as the state’s “flagship” campus. But that’s an irony to explore some other day. Today, the university is still balking at releasing the records of its most troublesome division and long-running sore.

So long as the prosecutors’ investigation into this thoroughly botched affair continues, says the university’s administration, it can’t legally release these records to Arkansas’ Newspaper. It claims that wouldn’t be in accordance with the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

BUT AT LEAST one scholar who’s studied the law extensively over the years asserts that such secrecy is not in accord with the state’s Freedom of Information Act at all.

Robert Steinbuch, who professes at the law school that’s part of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has a different-and more open-point of view. The professor argues that an “an independent record created and maintained by the university for non-law enforcement purposes” does not “magically become secret” when it’s turned over to a law-enforcement agency later.

The professor’s would not seem an unreasonable view. A university is not an arm of law enforcement. It’s an independent agency, or at least should be. And it should be making its own judgment about what it owes the public that supports it-and its own reputation. UA-F shouldn’t be acting as if it has something to hide. Certainly not after all this time and all these scandals.

The university’s general counsel, Fred Harrison, did allow that the records the Democrat-Gazette is asking for would be made public once the prosecutor’s office concludes its investigation. But, like justice itself, public information delayed can be public information denied if it’s not released in timely fashion. Unfortunately, the university’s hesitation to release these records will only stir more suspicion.

IF THE QUESTION of whether to release these records isn’t already sufficiently complicated, the state’s Legislative Audit Division is still conducting its own investigation of the university’s financial records. Its sage attorney, Frank Arey, says it would decline to release its copy of the records, too-but in accordance with a narrowly drawn provision of the state’s Freedom of Information Act that would seem to apply only to it. Meanwhile, at the behest of an ever-vigilant legislative committee, its investigation of UA-F’s fiscal affairs continues, and the whole state awaits the results.

Washington County’s deputy prosecutor, David Bercaw, has been handed this whole hornet’s nest-another demonstration that a prosecutor’s lot is not an easy one. He says he did object to the records’ being made public, but he also said he would leave it to the university’s administration to make its own decision about releasing the records.

At this point the administration at UA-F has had about as great a season as its football team-not that the team isn’t trying to do its best to level with the public. If only one could say as much about the university’s top brass with any confidence.

Why not just release these records and let the chips fall where they may? Tell the truth and shame the devil and all that. Or would that be too simple, too direct and straightforward a course? Maybe if the university had taken that path from the first, it wouldn’t be in this mess now. It’s still not too late for UA-F to come clean and put all this behind it.

As this multi-million-dollar scandal continues to reverberate throughout the state, let’s keep one thing in mind: This is still America, and the university’s administration should not be presumed guilty-even if it acts like it.