The University of Arizona is being ridiculously and obstinately opaque at a time when transparency has never been more important.
During the U of A’s long-playing financial crisis, administrators up to and including President Robert Robbins chose non-disclosure, or selective disclosure, and routinely ignored official public information requests. As the Star did its best to set out the meaning and ramifications of the crisis, as well as its origins, it was consistently hampered by the university’s passive refusal to process public information requests. To this day dozens of such official requests from the Star are still pending.
Absurd.
The Star is only asking for the university to follow state law in releasing information to the public. No state entity is immune from public-records law,
We had hoped that with a new president in place, things would improve. So far, six months into Suresh Garimella’s tenure, that seems increasingly unlikely.
In an initial meeting with Garimella, the Star’s leadership brought up the university’s “culture of nondisclosure,” and asked that the new president take action to change that culture.
Last week, another frustrating refusal to release information left the Star disappointed and, frankly, puzzled.
Star reporter Prerana Sannappanavar asked a relatively innocuous question: How many international students at the university have had their visas revoked by the Trump Administration?
This was a question asked by journalists of their hometown colleges and universities across the country. Arizona State University, for example, willingly divulged the number of foreign students it had been notified that had visas revoked.
The University of Arizona declined to release the number of students with revoked visas on privacy grounds.
All the Star asked for is the number of students affected. No names, just the number. How can that number intrude on anyone’s privacy?
U of A officials weren’t able to answer that question to our satisfaction, saying merely that the university had decided to take a conservative approach to information release.
“Conservative,” in this case, appears to be a euphemism for “illegal.”
The university has fallen all over itself to cleanse itself of any taint of DEI, falling in line with the misguided dictates of the current federal administration faster than you can say “Mr. President, we’re not Columbia or Harvard.” Contrast that with its indifferent and largely unsuccessful response to the requirements of public-information law.
If complying with records requests is not within the university’s resources, the administration needs to inform the Regents that it is in violation of the law and needs funding to rectify the situation.
President Garimella, we urge you to take steps to get the university back into compliance with public-records law and, most importantly, give Arizonans the information they deserve about their university.
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