The News-Gazette.com: UI to release more documents after closed meeting

UI to release more documents after closed meeting

By Paul Wood and Julie Wurth

Thursday, June 25, 2009 4:42 PM CDT

CHICAGO — The University of Illinois is releasing more e-mails on tainted admissions to its law school, after the Board of Trustees met behind closed doors for four hours Thursday.

No vote was taken at the meeting, and no one has been fired as a result of the probe, Trustee David Dorris of LeRoy said.

Chancellor Richard Herman would not discuss a report about investigators taking two computers from his office Thursday.

“I think really we ought to rely on an official statement and not rumors. I have no comment,” he said.

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, said he would not comment.

The emergency trustees’ meeting was announced three and a half hours before it began on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus.

The closed session was approved by a voice vote.

Dorris said he was appalled by reading the new documents, which were held back from a trove of papers given to The News-Gazette, radio station WDWS and Chicago Tribune after Freedom of Information requests.

“The obvious question I asked immediately was why were these not produced earlier. The only people who can answer are the people we’re investigating,” he said.

“The documents are very concerning to me and others. They seem to be inconsistent with the way I behave and what I believe should be policy.”

Law school admissions were among those politicians and trustees attempted to influence, according to documents the university had previously released.

In 2006, then-board Chairman Lawrence Eppley forwarded the name of a law school candidate that drew the ire of Paul Pless, assistant dean for admissions at the law school. The student’s Law School Admission Test score and grade point average placed him “well below” the 25th percentiles for the incoming class, which were 162 and 3.15, respectively, Pless wrote in an April 27 e-mail to then-law Dean Heidi Hurd.

“I can’t state strongly enough the negative impact this will have on the profile of the incoming class,” Pless wrote.

“This is now the third candidate that we have been forced to admit,” Pless continued, though he said the other two were “qualified to be students here.”

The latest, he said, “will not be a successful student here and I have very real concerns about his ability to pass the Bar. ... I apologize for the bluntness of this email, but we are setting this young man up to fail.”
Hurd then wrote to Chancellor Richard Herman: “Can you turn this around, Richard? Please?”

Herman forwarded it to Eppley: “Larry, give me a buzz when you have read this.”

The Illinois Open Meetings Act generally requires 48 hours’ notice before a public body can schedule a meeting, “except a meeting held in the event of a bona fide emergency.”

There was no indication in the UI’s notice about what constitutes the emergency.

Trustee Bob Vickrey said earlier Thursday that board Chairman Niranjan Shah called the meeting.

“I think it’s safe to say it’s a personnel matter” being discussed at the meeting, Vickrey said.

“I do not anticipate any resignations,” he said. “I’ve heard nothing that would indicate there will be any discussions of any resignations” of trustees or administrators.

UI spokesman Tom Hardy declined to elaborate on the agenda, saying the university does not discuss personnel matters publicly.

Asked if the board was considering any administrative resignations, Hardy said, “I wouldn’t be able to say.”

Hardy said he did not expect any board action after today’s meeting.
Such a vote would be illegal under the state’s Open Meetings Act.

Herman said this morning he would not be at today’s session and knew nothing beyond the stated agenda.

Reports that UI trustees and politicians — including ousted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich — tried to influence the admission of underqualified students to the Urbana campus have prompted state and federal inquiries of the university.

Hundreds of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that the UI kept a “Category I” list of applicants recommended by influential politicians, alumni and others. Not all were accepted, but of the 163 applicants on the most recent list, more than 100 were accepted.

E-mail records show admissions staff expressed reservations about a number of underqualified candidates.

In response, the UI suspended its Category I list and announced plans to investigate the admissions process.

Gov. Patrick Quinn, an ex-officio member of the board, then appointed a commission to look into the matter, and UI officials said they would drop their own investigation and cooperate with the state panel.

The eight-member commission is examining the standards and criteria used to evaluate applicants at the UI, any instances of favorable consideration to politically connected applicants, and the best practices of state universities around the country regarding admissions policies.

The commission, headed by retired federal Judge Abner Mikva, will hold its second hearing Monday. It is to submit a report outlining its findings and recommendations by Aug. 8.

On June 16, Fitzgerald subpoenaed records, including e-mails and other communications, from the UI regarding student admissions related to Blagojevich and four associates — convicted political fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko, fundraisers Chris Kelly and Alonzo Monk and developer William Cellini. The latter three are under indictment by federal prosecutors in the Blagojevich scandal. Kelly, who grew up in Champaign, has already pleaded guilty in a federal tax fraud case.

Eppley said earlier this month that he had received applicants´ names from the former governor and Blagojevich chief of staff John Harris, who is also under indictment, as well as Monk and Kelly. He said he forwarded them to the university´s top administrators “without editing.”

In a Dec. 8, 2005, e-mail to Herman, UI President B. Joseph White wrote, “The governor, through Larry Eppley, has expressed his support, and would like to see admitted to UIUC, two candidates.” The names of the students were blocked out.

On Dec. 17, Herman replied, “Joe, (redacted) is looking rather dicey at this point. Let me follow up again on Monday.”

The Chicago Tribune reported two cases where Blagojevich intervened on behalf of a candidate, including for a relative of Rezko.