Practically every angle of the almost incomprehensible scandal at Penn State has been covered ad infinitum.
I have yet to hear anything at all, however, about the degree to which the Board of Trustees knew, didn’t know, acted, or didn’t act, to address this scandal. At least not until this week.
It is inconceivable that the Board was not aware of the strong possibility that this scandal could well explode. In fact, back in April, this article by Mark Madden spelled out much of what was to come to pass. So, the Board at least knew then. No doubt they knew earlier about the impaneling of the grand jury. I find it hard to envision that members of the board, many of whom were/are close to the football program, did not know the particulars of Sandusky’s ‘retirement’.
Yet we have no record of what the BOT did about this, or indeed whether they deliberated at all. Why? Because Penn State is not officially a state institution per se, but a “state-related institution. As such, it now belongs to the Commonwealth System of Higher Education, and is not part of the fully public Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.”
Among other things, this means that, in addition to the university collecting millions upon millions of dollars from the State of Pennsylvania, the Board of Trustees is not obligated, nor do they, make any proceedings/minutes of Board meetings public. That includes to state officials. I wonder if the Board is going to battle FOIA demands from the Feds once that investigation is under way. It wouldn’t surprise me if it does.
Which brings us to the University of Delaware and, for that matter, Delaware State University. Just like Penn State, UD and DSU keep these board meetings totally in-house. Neither the public nor public officials are deemed worthy of knowing what is going on at these institutions that gorge themselves of public funds. That is wrong, has been wrong, and should be corrected by legislative action.
Any attorney could write the bill: ‘Any institution of higher learning receiving state funding from the State of Delaware shall make records of all Board of Trustees proceedings available to the public. Any disbursement of state funds to these institutions shall be contingent upon the making public of said records.” That’s a start but, hey, I’m not an attorney.
The fact is that we don’t know what is going on at these institutions. At least not until our intrepid State Auditor decides not to pursue some miscreant or other. Much that goes on is kept secret from the public within the respective Boards of Trustees. Just like much that was going on was kept from the public by the Penn State Board of Trustees. It is possible, maybe even likely, that the Penn State BOT withheld information and may well have placed children at risk as a result.
It is time to end this public/private charade. I call on the Delaware General Assembly and the Governor to let the disinfectant of sunshine into the proceedings of these institutions that claim that they are public when they back their armored trucks up to Leg Hall every June 30, but maintain that they are private entities when it comes to making any of their proceedings, including how they spend those public dollars, public.