By: Max Borders 05/27/11 12:25 PM Special to the Examiner

Publicly funded colleges and universities have always fancied themselves as guilds—immune from scrutiny and entitled to privacy.  Until now, the public has generally let them off the hook. Not anymore.  America’s state-supported “Big U” is in for a rude awakening—a dose of sunlight that will send these fat ‘n’ happy academics scattering into the highest reaches of the ivory towers to evade scrutiny. Don’t believe me?  Check out these two stories, which (I hope) are but the tip of the iceberg.

1. Climategate Part Deux—Climate alarmist Michael Mann is kicking and screaming to protect the emails he generated while working at the University of Virginia.  Folks involved in a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request of Mann’s work are carrying out an ongoing investigation of Mann’s work at UVa in light of Mann’s (and the IPCC’s) very serious Climategate lapses.  Most of the probe has centered on Mann’s work while at Penn State, but those interested in sound science would extend that probe further into the past. According to Investors Business Daily:

A state judge has ordered the University of Virginia to cough up documents that pertain to the climate change research of Michael Mann, a former professor known for the hockey stick chart that supposedly shows the earth warming sharply over the last 100 years.

And in the timeless howl of the cold busted, Mann responds with circumstantial ad hominem fallacy:

Mann’s response has been to accuse “fossil fuel industry-funded climate change deniers” with harassing the university, NASA “and scientific institutions with these frivolous attacks.”

Mann obviously has no desire to see more of his dubious methods dragged into the sunlight.  Alas, as he was working for the University of Virginia, Mann was a public employee and thus a servant of the people.  He thus has no claim to privacy.  Indeed, in the spirit of open inquiry and accountability in scientific research, why shouldn’t he be open to scrutiny of his research?

2. Texas Sunlight—“Big U” faculty across the state of Texas are fretting that the University system released a draft document that disclosed to the public details of their salaries. According to this Chronicle of Higher Education article, the faculty are fretting due to “inaccuracies and discrepancies.” My guess is they are fretting because the taxpayers of Texas can see what sort of cushy salaries they’re making, despite a state budget crisis.  (And of course, academics will justify their exorbitant salaries based on their inflated self-concepts.)

In my humble opinion (which counts for a little more now that I’m a Texas citizen), salaries are only the beginning.  The university should also have to release complete information on all research budgets.  Texas faculty know that if the people see how little return they’re getting on all this public research “investment”—and that the students are getting short changed in the process—they will be appalled - and one of the greatest frauds perpetrated against the people of Texas will have been exposed. 

But this is likely to to be true not just in Texas, but in every state of the Union.  As the costs of higher education continue to spiral out of control, people want to know what they’re paying for.  And they deserve to know.  (Boy, if they only knew.)

No Guild

Public colleges and universities are not guilds.  They are taxpayer supported institutions and they should be thrown open to all manner of scrunity by taxpapers—from what they are teaching in the classroom to what the research budgets are paying for.  The faculty will squirm and throw temper tantrums, but if they don’t like it, they can get a job at a private college.  I would even go as far as to say that a private university that receives state or federal tax dollars should have to comply with FOIA requests.  The more we can bring sunlight into these hallowed halls, the more we’ll see the ergot of waste and corruption we’ve always just assumed wasn’t there.  It’s time to audit “Big U.”

Max Borders is a writer living in Austin. He blogs at Ideas Matter.