Anybody who’s ever managed a letters-to-the-editor column would understand the problem that was put before the board of trustees of the state’s university system this month.
So will addicts of this newspaper’s Letters column, which can resemble a football scrum, street-corner religious revival, grudge match, convention of hobbyhorse riders, sweet appeals to reason, a seminar in philosophy, or any and all of those depending on what day you catch it. For no column in the newspaper may be more richly varied. Or more representative of a paper’s readership.
The ebb and flow of the day’s contributions can leave more flotsam and jetsam strewn about than a beachfront storm. The quality of the letters varies, to put it mildly.
Our theory is that it’s determined by the phases of the moon or, far less predictable, the public mood of the moment.
And if you think our Letters column is a mixed bag, Dear Reader, you ought to see it before it’s edited.
Because the raw material from which it’s made, when legible, can include not just the occasional revelation but a full quota of factual inaccuracies, unsubstantiated speculation, assorted defamations and invasions of privacy-or just simple, and I mean simple, tastelessness.
Sorting through that daily pile of letters can be as much of a challenge as judging strands of cotton; they go from the literary equivalent of fine through good, fair, middling and ordinary to inferior.
It’s a good day when the fair-to middlin’ outnumber the absolutely awful. Let’s just say our Letters editor, the eagle-eyed and stout-hearted Brenda Looper, is never short of challenges to her discriminating judgment.
So, yes, I can appreciate, and apprehend, why one Jacob Flournoy, Director of Internal Audit for the University of Arkansas system, sought the guidance of the system’s board of trustees-a board that must oversee the system’s more than 15 universities, colleges and schools just at last count. Mr.
Flournoy’s question: Should he shut down the system’s 24-hour Fraud Hotline, or at least suspend it for a while?
Why? Because the hotline could spread irresponsible accusations, infringe on the privacy of the whistleblowers who’ve spotted something worth spotting, or even imperil the kind of investigation the hotline was designed to inspire when it was inaugurated in 2007.
To quote Mr. Flournoy, the hotline was “intended to encourage all university employees to report suspected or actual occurrences of fraud or alleged wrongful conduct without fear of retribution.” And it’s actually done so on notable occasions, as when a tip on the hotline led to an audit involving a residence hall at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Four of its employees were fired a couple of years ago after an internal audit found $700,000 in payroll and purchasing transactions that violated university spending controls.
So how do you keep the benefits a hotline provides without risking the dangers it presents? Short answer: You don’t. You can’t have one without the other. It’s just the nature of hotlines, letters-to-the-editor columns, and maybe the world in general, that ever churning mix of good and evil.
It may take many a virtue to offset a single vice. To set up a system that invites the expression of both in profusion, like a hotline, well, that takes guts. Also faith. Faith that the truth will out, And that, when presented with a world of choices, good and bad and in-between, we will make the right ones.
Only one thing is certain about such a process: Not to risk making a bad choice is the worst choice of all. It is to surrender to fear, and forget that courage is the virtue that guarantees all the others, for without it none of those virtues would ever be exercised. It takes a certain courage to open a hotline.
And then keep it open.
Opinions may differ about whether the dangers of a hotline outweigh its advantages, as opinions differ on just about everything in this free and open, not to say rambunctious, society.
Much like a free press, a hotline can be an awful nuisance. Havinga watchdog around all the time is wearing. The mutt may spend half the night barking at a dead tree or baying at the moon, keeping the neighbors awake and irritated.
But all can be forgiven if the little rascal nabs some scalawag up to no good.
The still new president of the University of Central Arkansas at Conway, which used to be an unending source of scandal, displayed just the right attitude when he was asked whether UCA was going to shut down its hotline. “There’s no consideration or thought of doing away” with it, Tom Courtway replied. “I’m not going to recommend it.’’ He’s clearly learned from UCA’s many troubles in the past. The rest of the state should, too. Hotlines are worth the risk.
UCA has shown that a state university, however plagued by scandal, can go from continual embarrassment to shining example. Now its old role as the university system’s problem case is being played by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville-and on a much larger scale. It would be a mistake to shut down the university system’s hotline, and a much greater risk than any it now presents.
As for the dangers a hotline presents, they come with the territory, which is called freedom of expression.
Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. E-mail him at: [email protected]
Perspective, Pages 81 on 09/22/2013