More Negative Press For UK

9/10/2016

Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 27 posts on the blog and each has its own set of comments. To read the comments you have to hit the word "Comments" at the beginning or end of the post. Somewhat confusing is that when you bring up the comments for a specific post it eliminates the other posts from the screen. To bring the other posts back up simply go back to the top of the page and click on Blog. Finally, to understand the development of the blog it is best to read it from the bottom post (Dr. Paul Kearney Case) up. One point of note here, to read the earliest posts you have to click on the word "<<Previous" at the very bottom of the posts available.

A commenter at the end of the last post thought this might be worthy of a new post. We have covered and discussed much of it on the previous post, but just to keep the fires burning here it is. It seems that UK cannot keep off of the front page of the Herald Leader. Once again we have this article:

http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article100919697.html

entitled: “Three UK trustees clash with Capilouto over suing student newspaper.” Of course this was on the heels of this article:

http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article100359972.html

entitled: “Andy Beshear seeks to intervene in UK’s lawsuit against its student newspaper”.

In the former article three BoT members at a recent BoT meeting attempted to generate a discussion and vote on the President’s decision to sue the school newspaper for requesting redacted public records regarding the investigation into James Harwood sexual harassment of students. Unfortunately, these board members were somewhat coerced into not doing this. To quote the article:

“I’ve been told by other trustees in leadership that if I prompted a vote on this today that the president would resign and I would plunge the university into chaos, so I’m going to simply express my own views today and not call for a vote,” said trustee David Hawpe. “I think the university’s position is unwise and unfair. I think it’s the wrong balancing of interests, which I freely admit exist on both sides of this controversy.”

What this appears to translate into is that the UK President fully agrees with the decision that any university professor who uses his position of power to sexually harass students, should be rewarded with 6 months paid vacation, health benefits till he/she finds a new job and a nondisclosure agreement that says we will not disclose this information to anyone. President Capilouto attempts to justify this decision by stating that it is all being done for the good of the students. Two questions, what if it was your daughter that was sexually harassed Dr. Capilouto, and what do you tell the parents of the future students that you put in harms way by this decision? Thank you Kentucky Kernel for doing Dr. Capilouto’s job, and shame on you Dr. Capilouto. Personally I can’t see where Dr. Capilouto’s resignation would throw the university into total chaos.

The bottom line being that this all appears to be a fight for secrecy by the upper administration at the university, versus a fight for transparency by many of the university students, university faculty, university staff and the taxpayers subsidizing this public university.

22 Comments

Da Illest

9/10/2016 02:55:38 pm

To use a sports analogy does this Capiluto report strike anyone else as the proverbial spoiled brat who "takes his ball and goes home" instead of continuing to compete and play when call doesn't go his way on the court?

The fact that a University president would threaten to resign over the mere insinuation that a vote or discussion could be proposed at a BOT meeting regarding the University's refusal to comply with the law is simply absurd. Put simply the University is breaking the law and instead of Capiluto resigning (taking your ball and going home) Kentuckians should demand that the leadership immediately comply with the law and become transparent as instructed instead of cowardly actions like threatening to resign, suing your own student newspaper, a ridiculous KBML propaganda campaign, etc.

Quote: "Trustee Mark Bryant, a Paducah attorney, said it was difficult to support using UK’s money to pay for a legal fight with its newspaper, “especially in a futile effort to shield documents that are already public.”

“In my four years on this board, the only time I have ever seen such vehement criticism of our university, leadership and our board is for refusing to comply with open records and open meetings requests,” Bryant continued. “Our actions in this controversy give the impression we have something to hide. The more we withhold documents, the more criticism and scrutiny we attract. What do we have to hide?”

Dan Noonan

9/11/2016 03:14:30 am

Thanks for your comment Da Illest. I think my greatest curiosity, like Mr. Bryant and many others, is “why is the university suing its student newspaper”? The information is out there and clearly they have no case here. There is no law against requesting open records, nor is there any law against publishing the truth. If the truth defames the university in any way, it is solely on the heads of the university officials who covered it up. Having said that, the most obvious reason for suing the student newspaper for publishing this information is that they are simply trying to avoid making James Harwood any richer than they have already made him with their guaranteed 6 months salary and health benefits (hmmm, I wonder if they also had to pay him vacation time). They need this plausible deniability with respect to having anything to do with breaking of the nondisclosure agreement they had with him, lest James Harwood sues them for millions.

I think one question in many people’s mind when they read this article in the student newspaper was “who leaked this editor these investigation documents”. The most likely possibility would be a committee member or one of the victims. On the other hand, if you are a conspiracy theorist and you read too many of those Kindle free mysteries, you might come up with a plot wherein upon hearing that some of these students he groped were going to out him to the student newspaper, you have James Harwood leaking these documents. This offers him an opportunity to sue the university for breaking the NDA and one last time to capitalize on his sexual misconduct. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

9/11/2016 05:59:06 am

Meant KMSF propaganda campaign. Not KBML.

Utopia Collie

9/10/2016 03:22:04 pm

For the past two years out of state undergraduate enrollment at UK has been almost 40% of the incoming class and when you include the graduate and professional schools out of state enrollment comfortably exceeds in state enrollment. Surely this must mean that citizens of KY are being denied admission to UK in favor of higher paying out of state students. University for Kentucky- my ass. In my opinion this is far more egregious than all of the other "scandals" being discussed here but nobody else seems to be outraged.

9/11/2016 11:13:17 am

Thanks Utopia Collie for your comment. We have visited this subject matter in the comment section of a previous post. You are absolutely correct, educating the citizens of Kentucky should be a top priority for the University of Kentucky, its president and the BoT. Dr. Capilouto likes to tout his accomplishments in attracting the exceptional students into the Honors Program. This is great and definitely something to be proud of, but what bothers me about it is that we sat at the 47th least educated state out of our 50 states when Dr. Capilouto took over as president back in May of 2011, and that is where we sit today (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income). Not too coincidentally, we also sit at number 47 when looking at the poorest states in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income). As the flagship university of this state, identifying avenues for educating all of the citizens of “our” state should be our number 1 priority. These numbers suggest that President Capilouto has not accomplished much in this area over the past 5 years that he has been president.

Fools Gold

9/13/2016 06:21:39 am

To suggest that Capilouto is to blame for the poor education of Kentucky is laughable. Not his fault education is not valuable by the citizens of the state. Not his fault high school students here are dumber than the average state. I applaud his desire to improve the academic mission of UK. If a Kentucky high school student does a good job in high school, there should be a place for him/her at UK. If they don't, they can go to a community school or WKU or EKU or whatever. They don't belong at UK.

9/13/2016 06:35:44 am

I think that Fools Gold has it one of the relevant nails on the head which is that even if as some people here think the taxpayers of KY "own" UK and "subsidize" its operation they have not invested enough over time to produce a nationally competitive public research university. Whatever you say about them, both Capilouto and Karpf have tried to improve things but this has largely been funded through healthcare revenue and private agreements with the companies that are building and operating all of the new campus accommodation. If the taxpayers want more control and more transparency then a good place to start would be to provide more than 6% of the operating budget of the University.

9/13/2016 07:13:17 am

Thanks for your comment Fools Gold. I would agree that Dr. Capilouto has probably done much better than some of his predecessors in improving the academic mission of the university, but I would disagree with your sentiment that education is not valued by the citizens of the state of Kentucky, nor that the students here are "dumber" than in other states. I wonder how many students that do good in high school never have the opportunity to attend UK? How many eligible students are not able to attend UK because the tuition costs are unaffordable and simply keep going up? Tuition has increased by 95% since 2005 (http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article83755792.html) and by 31% since Dr. Capilouto took office. Yes, I totally agree that these increases cannot be blamed on Dr. Capilouto, but the point I am making is that the cost of attending UK is probably the dominant factor for why eligible students do not attend UK, as apposed to the sentiment that they are "dumber" than students from other states. In fact, Kentucky high schoolers rank 17th out of the 50 states in SAT scores (http://www.qsleap.com/articles/average-sat-scores-by-state-us/). I think the concern Utopia Collie expressed with respect to UK targeting out of state tuition is possibly a legitimate one. Furthermore, I believe many are also wondering how these minimal accomplishments along with the many controversies arising in and around UK leadership justify this 48% raise and golden parachute.

9/13/2016 08:57:10 am

Thank you for your comment Utopia Collie. I am going to have to disagree with you on this one. To begin with, I think you give too much value to the healthcare revenue. Your statement tends to minimize the state’s contribution to the UK education mission while inflating the healthcare contributions to the UK education mission. In looking at the UK healthcare revenue as documented in the KMSF audit (http://kmsf.fusiondev.co/files/2016-06/2015-issued-financial-statements.pdf), it appears that the majority of the hospital revenue is used for the hospital operating budget, physician salary supplements etc. Of course we can’t see much of the details in this because they won’t permit it. Then there is the medical school that brings in over 20 million dollars annually in tuition, and there is also tuition revenue from basic sciences and the other 30,000 students attending the university. Finally we have the 6% from the state. Now here is where I also have a little problem with your comment. It appears that all to often we forget that the funding of the building of this university and its hospital was primarily through taxpayer dollars. The hospital would not be here and not be the profitable venture everyone is marveling about if it were not for the original investments by Kentucky taxpayers. It seems now that it has become profitable; those at the top are trying to divest the hospital from the university. As I see it, the hospital is a property of the state and the state taxpayers; therefore, the revenue the hospital is contributing to the educational efforts of the University of Kentucky is in reality “state taxpayer dollars”. Finally, once again it really does not matter whether the state contributions are 6% or 0.001%, being a state university and a state hospital they fall under a specific set of laws with regards to transparency. Until the university changes to a private facility or the laws regarding public universities change with respect to transparency, we are obligated to abide by those laws.

Spoon Snake

9/13/2016 11:50:59 am

I think there are bright hight school students in KY but they are probably not all going to UK. The mean incoming ACT score at UK this year is 25 which is significantly lower than at other top public universities including those in our neighboring states.

9/13/2016 11:59:08 am

It would be interesting to see the investment made in UK since its inception by the state presented in some sort of an inflation adjusted way that would enable a comparison to that made by other states in their public universities. My guess is that investment in UK has been consistently low.

9/13/2016 02:11:05 pm

Thanks for the comments Spoon Snake and Utopia Collie. I agree Spoon Snake; I believe we do have many highly qualified students leaving the state for their undergraduate education. Interestingly, as Utopia pointed out, 40% of “our students” now come from out of state. I do know that when I was at the university, the children of many of my faculty colleagues chose to attend out of state universities. I also know the hospital has a program for physicians that pays for their children’s college education. I don’t know if that is limited to UK education or simply anywhere. This is a subject I have written about to Wethington, Todd and Capilouto. Providing tuition free education to children of faculty who are working at the university is clearly one excellent opportunity for increasing the number of highly qualified students, increasing the percentage of graduates and stimulating faculty recruitment and retention. Furthermore I doubt that it would cost much to the university because the majority of these students might not be expected to attend UK, and I doubt that the number of students would have any impact on class sizes. I even provided in my email letter evidence that this is not unique, but rather a benefit for faculty at a number of our so called “benchmark universities”. As might be expected I received the standard “thank you for your input” reply. You might find it humorous that about a week after I received my reply from Wethington’s office I received a letter from Wethington’s office placing me on the university’s safety committee. I am certain this was not coincidental.

Utopia Collie, I do not have any information on the cumulative state’s investment into UK, and how it compares to other state universities. I would ask that you keep in mind that Kentucky is the 47th poorest state in the union. Whatever this number might be, I suspect it would be significantly higher if you factor in average income.

Blog Reader

9/12/2016 06:43:02 am

Are you kidding me? In the past few weeks we have had the University of Kentucky suing 2 newspapers, the attorney general and a private citizen for either asking for the truth or publishing the truth. What a fine example to the students attending this university, what an embarrassment to those working at this university and what a ripoff to the taxpayers who help finance this university. Gooooo Catttttttastrophy!

9/13/2016 06:26:01 am

Thanks for the comment Blog Reader. I tend to agree.

9/12/2016 07:15:40 am

I think Capilouto's position for the Hayward case is that even if the names of the "victims" is redacted they could easily be identified by simply looking to see which students and post docs worked in his lab (I'd be happy to post the information here). And he goes onto say that even if these particular victims don't mind being identified it doesn't matter because what if someone else came forward in some hypothetical future case and didn't want to be identified or to have any possibility of being identified. He may have a point here.

The basis for the appeals of the AG's rulings related to the H-L and Hatemi requests is much less clear to me other than, that in the Hatemi cases, UK has said that the records don't exist and its not clear to me that the AG can do anything to prove otherwise.

9/12/2016 08:39:58 am

Thank you for the comment Utopia Collie. I completely understand and sympathize with both President Capilouto and the victims concerns. The great loser in all of this is of course the victim. Beyond the very emotional considerations, choosing to report sexual misconduct comes with both the potential for exposure (a comprehensive investigation has to be conducted) and a potentially negative impact on ones career.

My concern with how this whole thing was handled, and I would hope it would also be President Capilouto’s, is the inclusion of this Informal Resolution Option and a nondisclosure agreement, in a crime of this nature. We discussed this in the comment section of the blog post entitled: “UK Open Records Requests in the News Again”. I questioned whether this option should be included for this type of crime, and the argument for including this Informal Resolution Option was, “it offers a rapid way to terminate faculty employment without the time and expense of formal investigations and dismissal processes. If the faculty member knows that they are going to be publicly shamed and sacked anyway, why cooperate? Why not just spin the whole process out for as long as possible.”

I still personally think this option needs to be minimally changed to not include a nondisclosure agreement for crimes of this nature. Although we have this obligation to protect our university students, we also have the same obligation to protect other university students from this behavior. I believe this was exactly the concern our student victims had with respect to how the James Harwood matter was handled. I think it was very brave of them to risk exposure attempting to challenge the fact that our university accepting this Informal Resolution Option in essence set this person free to potentially commit the same crime elsewhere. I personally think, if after an extensive investigation the conclusions are that this type of crime has been committed, you simply fire the employee and let him/her take you to court should they wish. Courts are very sensitive about exposure of victims and these types of crimes can land a person in jail and relegate the individual to very few job options after jail. I think choosing between jail-time versus moving on with this black mark on ones record, most would choose the latter. Furthermore, I would be willing to bet that if this was a staff employee convicted of this type of crime, he/she would not be provide with the luxury of 6-months salary, benefits and an NDA.

9/12/2016 12:07:57 pm

All good points except that Harwood wasn't indicted, charged, arrested or prosecuted for a crime let alone convicted. In cases where faculty have been arrested UK has rapidly terminated them (google Neil Mason Williams who makes Harwood look like a choirboy for example). Unfortunately Harwood had done enough to warrant sanctions from UK but not enough to warrant criminal prosecution. And even if he had an NDA with UK as he has found out there is nothing to stop public spirited individuals from leaking details of his misdeeds or contacting future employers themselves. I just don't think appealing the AG decision (not the same as suing the KY Kernel) over the Harwood case is anywhere near the same level as the UKHC/KMSF stuff. But I do appreciate why the way UK handled Harwood is upsetting to many people.

9/13/2016 07:39:31 am

Thank you for your comment Utopia Collie.

The Mole

9/14/2016 10:22:02 am

I'm coming out of retirement to tell you that the announcement that Mike Karpf will be stepping down as EVPHA is imminent, possibly as early as this afternoon.

9/14/2016 10:41:11 am

Thanks The Mole for this comment. Very interesting news.

9/14/2016 02:14:40 pm

I hear it is official now. Dr. Karpf will retire in June of next year. I believe many posts ago The Mole predicted this. I am wondering what the committee for recruiting the new hospital leader will be composed of? Do you think they might be looking for a non-MD businessman type ? There is a rumor going around that they are talking about making the med school part of the university and separating the hospital business from the university. This would be unfortunate for the university if it ever happened.

9/14/2016 02:33:45 pm

Of course there won't be a committee. This will be done by Capilouto and the BOT working with a search firm. I doubt anyone will even know who the candidates are until the winner is unveiled.

The separation of UKHC from UK and the COM may be an unintended consequence of all of this scandalmongering/open records enthusiasm.

The people who need to worry are all of the high level "administrators" who might end up being replaced by the new boss.

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