TRI In The News
BOV Actions May Have Complied with Letter of the Law, but Spirit?
From The Daily Progress
Original article available here
Experts in Virginia’s open meetings laws say the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors likely did not break the law in holding one-on-one conversations about the future of the university’s president, although they question the calling of an emergency meeting last Sunday to accept her resignation.
Students, faculty and others upset with the board’s actions have questioned whether the board acted legally in communicating with each other outside of a publicly announced meeting regarding dismissing President Teresa A. Sullivan.
Megan Rhyne, of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said she has no knowledge of how the Board of Visitors members communicated but that as long as they held individual discussions there likely was no violation of open meetings law.
Rector Helen E. Dragas reportedly held discussions with individual board members regarding Sullivan over several months, although at least three of the board members reportedly had no idea that Sullivan was about to be pressured to resign.
“They certainly can talk with each other one-to-one; that’s specifically in the [Freedom of Information Act],” Rhyne said. “They may also email each other and the [Virginia] Supreme Court has ruled that email is not a meeting, so they could have communicated that way, as well.”
John Whitehead, a constitutional scholar and president of the Albemarle County-based Rutherford Institute, questioned whether accepting the president’s resignation qualified as an emergency.
“By calling an ‘emergency’ meeting, the board avoided the obligation under Virginia’s Freedom of Information [Act] that notice of meetings be posted or advertised at least three working days before the meeting,” he said. “It is certainly more than arguable that this situation did not meet the standard of an ‘emergency’ such that the three-day notice requirement should not have been complied with.”
Rhyne said the problem with allowing one-on-one contact and emails is that boards can reach agreements on issues without ever bringing debate into the public.
“If the right is exercised to an extreme, then the meeting itself becomes a pro forma event to ratify what’s already been decided,” she said. “The public wants to know what goes into a decision in order to evaluate whether it’s good or bad so they can make decisions.”
Rhyne said that’s especially true at the university, considering the time and effort that went into choosing Sullivan.
“There was a lengthy process that included the many stakeholders and a lot of people were vested in that decision,” Rhyne said. “The decision to reverse that very public, very lengthy decision was done quickly and secretively and people are left to grasp for answers. They’re naturally going to turn to rumor and speculation and become embittered by what happened.”
The office of the state attorney general declined to comment for this story, citing attorney-client privilege with its client, the board.
A lack of transparency has been one of the major criticisms leveled against the board. When the board meets in closed session Monday to consider potential interim presidents, it will be yet another failure, said graduate student Suzie McCarthy, who is organizing one of several groups expected to attend the meeting to show support for Sullivan.
“We’ve been very vocal that closed-door meetings have to stop, and yet they’re moving forward with this,” she said.
