EDITORIALS

Let the record show . . .

Higher education keeps getting lower

— WE CONFESS to reading every word of the all-too-smutty story on the front page of Saturday’s paper (“Ex-UCA chief’s data use abroad tied to porn views,” Page 1, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette). We told ourselves it was news, and it was, but we still felt like washing our hands afterward. Pity we couldn’t wash our minds.

This latest addition to the bulging dossier of former President Allen Meadors is of a piece with the rest of his sad record at the University of Central Arkansas. And like the rest, it makes for depressing reading.

Lest we forget, no matter how much all of us might like to, this is the same university president who had a vendor commit to expensive work ($700,000 worth) on his campus residence in exchange for a lucrative seven-year contract with the university.

Naturally he didn’t see any need to broadcast that little detail to all the members of UCA’s board. Or the public. Once that not-so-small condition was revealed, the deal was off and he himself was gone soon afterward-but on the most generous terms. The $563,000 buy-out of his contract, courtesy of both the taxpayers and private contributors, only added insult to expensive injury.

All that was before Dr. Meadors pled guilty to violating the state’s Freedom of Information Act, and plea-bargained his way to the all-too-usual tap-on-the-wrist sentence. Convicted of only a Class C misdemeanor, he was ordered to pay a $250 fine and court costs. And didn’t have to do any jail time.

Worse than this latest revelation about his viewing habits-up to $1,000 worth of porn during a single week spent traveling abroad-is that UCA’s former president and role model denied it. The pornography would have been nobody’s business but his own if it had been on his own dime; instead, a public university was footing the charges.When an investigator asked if it wasn’t the porn that accounted for the big bill, he answered: “I’m positive it didn’t. You can check that out.”

Investigators did. And what they found was all that pornography. What a creep. And not just because of the pics. The $1,000 or so that Allen Meadors’ appetite for porn cost the university was indicative of his whole record at UCA: brazen, grasping, and more than indiscreet. In a word, appalling.

And this is the kind of “educator” we the people were relying on to mold the character and elevate the standards of the next generation. UCA’s faculty and students, not to mention its supporters and contributors, deserved better. So did the taxpaying citizens of Arkansas. Happily, Dr. Meadors’ scandal-filled reign at UCA was brief. Just not brief enough.

MEANWHILE, at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the “flagship” campus of the UofA system, is still taking on water as it’s buffeted by one revelation after another about its Advancement Division. That’s the official title of its fundraising juggernaut, with its payroll of 139 as of last November and a $10-million budget for the past year. Yet it still managed to overspend that impressive amount by some $3.3 million.

How could that happen? Inquiring minds-and the state’s taxpayers-want to know, and have every right to know. But it won’t be easy finding all the answers without access to the university’s own review of the shortfall. And the university’s nabobs refuse to release it-despite Freedom of Information requests from the Democrat-Gazette. Even though every other public agency in Arkansas that we know of routinely releases its audit reports. For example: The state’s auditors prepare more than a thousand such reports every year and, to quote Roger Norman, a longtime employee of the Legislative Audit Division, “I can’t think of any instances where they are not public.”

“Everything we do is public record,” says Ricky Quattlebaum, who’s director of internal audits at the state’s Department of Finance and Administration. “From my experience and interpretation of the Freedom of Information law,” he adds, “every audit and report is public once it is finished.” His staff did 43 such financial audits and reviews this past year, all of them open to public inspection.

But secrecy reigns at the University of Arkansas’ campus at Fayetteville where this financial review is concerned. The university claims it’s a personnel record and so exempt from public inspection.

To quote an email from John Diamond, a spokesman for the university: “An internal review [into the shortfall in the Advancement Division] was conducted by Jean Schook . . . a former Arkansas state auditor and currently the UofA’s treasurer and associate vice chancellor for finance & administration.” For example, she “tested the transaction controls” and “reviewed specific transactions . . .” Which sound like just the kind of official actions covered by Arkansas law, which declares that citizens“shall be advised of the performance of public officials and of the decisions that are reached in public activity and in making public policy.” Because it “is vital in a democratic society that public business be performed in an open and public manner.” BUT THIS financial review is a confidential personnel matter, according to the university’s lawheads, and so may be kept under lock and key. Robert Steinbuch, who teaches law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and specializes in Freedom of Information law, isn’t buying it. “Classic examples of public records are spending and salary information,” he notes. “It does not appear to me that a financial review should ordinarily be exempt from disclosure.”

As for the university’s claim that these are personnel records, says the professor, “It is one of the exemptions that has been consistently abused by government entities attempting to withhold what is public information.”

Bill Kincaid, one of the university’s lawyers, responds that, to his knowledge, the professor “hasn’t reviewed the record at issue . . .” and so “ doesn’t have a sufficient basis to offer an opinion.” It’s the Classic Catch-22: Since the professor-along with the rest of the public-hasn’t been allowed to review the documents, he’s said to be unqualified to judge their contents. Neat.

Or as Professor Steinbuch puts it, “It’s wonderfully convenient for the school to refuse to disclose the document and then turn around and argue that no one can opine whether the document should be disclosed because they don’t have a copy.” Who’s writing this scenario-Franz Kafka?

No, this playbook is the work of the pettifogging administrators at UA-F, who seem intent on imitating if not outdoing Herr Kafka. In this instance, they’ve cited the letter of the law about an exemption for personnel records to violate its spirit. But that description of what they’re up to isn’t quite fair, is it?Rather, they’ve used what they contend is the letter of the law to violate its spirit, which is worse. They’ve given any benefit of the doubt not to the public interest but to their own in avoiding any further embarrassments this financial review might contain. The surest result of their little games will be to raise more suspicions (secrecy always does) and further erode the university’s reputation.

And these are the people we rely on to mold the character and elevate the standards of the next generation. The university’s faculty and students, not to mention its supporters and contributors, deserve better. So do the taxpaying citizens of Arkansas.

Editorial, Pages 16 on 02/05/2013

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