| Blog and Media Roundup - Thursday, July 25, 2013; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 25 2013, 04:48 AM (187 Views) | |
| abb | Jul 25 2013, 04:48 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jul/24/newspaper-judges-ruling-on-tbi-file-too-broad/ Newspaper: Judge's ruling on TBI file too broad By Jamie Satterfield Wednesday, July 24, 2013 A ruling rejecting a bid to unseal Tennessee Bureau of Investigation records on a disgraced former Knox County judge runs afoul of a state Supreme Court decision, a petition filed Wednesday states. Attorney Richard Hollow filed on behalf of the News Sentinel a petition to — for the third time now — intervene in Knox County Criminal Court litigation related to the TBI investigative file on Richard Baumgartner. In his petition, Hollow says Senior Judge Walter Kurtz got it wrong in a recent ruling on the file when Kurtz opined that law enforcement files are exempt from the Tennessee Open Records Act. That’s too broad an interpretation, the newspaper argues. “This statement is at variance with the holding of the Supreme Court of Tennessee (in a 2007 case),” Hollow wrote. The 2007 decision cited by Hollow states that the high court concluded “that the law enforcement privilege has not previously been adopted as a common law privilege in Tennessee and should not be adopted herein.” Investigative files of local and state law enforcement agencies are public records under the act once an investigation has been closed. By statute, TBI files are an exception. The News Sentinel long has sought and received access to closed law enforcement files from agencies, including the Knoxville Police Department and Knox County Sheriff’s Office. Baumgartner resigned in 2011 after a TBI probe that showed, among other things, that he was using his drug-addicted mistress to procure prescription painkillers, had committed doctor shopping to get pills and bought pills from a felon on probation in his court. His misdeeds prompted the granting of new trials to two of four defendants in the January 2007 torture-slayings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23. The News Sentinel has twice used court action to try to force the unsealing of the entire TBI file on Baumgartner but was stymied by state law giving the TBI a specific exemption from the Open Records Act. Senior Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood did, however, make public 155 pages of a file that spans more than 5,400 pages that he said led him to upend two convictions in the Christian-Newsom case. With the retrials over, lawyer Herbert S. Moncier sought access to the entire file on behalf of the families of Christian and Newsom. Kurtz shot down that request in a ruling filed Friday. It is in that ruling that Hollow and Moncier, who filed a separate response to Kurtz’s ruling, contend Kurtz went too far in saying all law enforcement files are privileged. The entire TBI file was filed in connection with a federal prosecution of Baumgartner and was not placed under seal. It was contained on a compact disc filed away, not in the public electronic file, but in U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley’s office. The News Sentinel earlier this month asked for a copy of the disc. Shirley has ordered Baumgartner’s attorneys to redact personal and medical information from the file and convert the disc to electronic form before considering the News Sentinel’s request. Shirley has set a Sept. 3 deadline on the redactions. |
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| abb | Jul 25 2013, 04:48 AM Post #2 |
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http://www.heraldsun.com/news/x533460081/UNC-board-weighs-incentive-pay-for-top-fundraiser UNC board weighs incentive pay for top fundraiser Jul. 24, 2013 @ 08:02 PM Gregory Childress CHAPEL HILL — The UNC Board of Trustees will decide Thursday whether to adopt an incentive compensation plan for the next vice chancellor for development, the university’s top fundraiser. Trustees, along with new Chancellor Carol Folt, discussed the plan Wednesday during a meeting of the board’s University Affairs Committee. If approved, the vice chancellor could be eligible to receive incentive pay amounting to as much as 25 percent of his or her base pay for meeting certain goals set by the chancellor. UNC is currently in the hunt for a permanent vice chancellor for development, and see the incentive as a tool to help the university attract top candidates. “I think, as you know, development is particularly important to higher ed institutions these days, and particularly our public sector institutions, and we’re trying to equip the chancellor with all of the tools necessary and available to us to try to recruit and then hire and retain the really excellent individuals to carry out that function,” said Brenda Malone, the university’s vice chancellor for human resources. UNC General Administration has set a salary maximum for the position at $395,874. That means the school’s top fundraiser could earn as much as $98,968 in incentive pay. Malone said that when she looked at the university’s peers, she found that senior development officers across the country are paid well beyond the maximum set for UNC. “I haven’t even found a salary that’s lower than $400,000, and certainly they go up significantly,” Malone said. Officials said the goals for the vice chancellor would be reviewed annually and could change from year-to-year, depending on the university’s needs. “You’re going to expect them to change quite a bit as we enter into the [major fundraising] campaign,” Folt said. “There’s a whole series of things that they’ll need to do in the first year or two of that that will be very different from the things that they will do going along. This is very common now in running these enterprises at universities.” The new development officer will replace longtime fundraiser Matt Kupec, who resigned last year after he racked up nearly $17,000 in questionable travel-related and other expenses. Julia Sprunt Grumbles, a former corporate vice president of Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta, has served as interim vice chancellor for development since September 2012. Grumbles reported Wednesday a 5.8 percent decrease – from $280.4 million to $270.7 million -- in gifts received through June 2013 versus June 2012. The board also will consider significant changes to the Chapel Hill Foundation, Inc.’s travel and expense policies and procedures at its meeting today. |
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| abb | Jul 25 2013, 04:50 AM Post #3 |
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How much more at UNC-Chapel Hill As chairwoman of the Faculty Council at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one would think Jan Boxill’s first concern in view of the disgraceful scandals in athletics and parts of the academic side of the university would be academic integrity. Indeed, over the past three years, much embarrassing and disturbing information has surfaced about the behavior of football players, contacts with agents, an academic support system geared toward maintaining eligibility and not ensuring academic integrity and a humiliating exposure of bogus courses in the African studies department. But, as The News & Observer’s Dan Kane reported Sunday, Boxill appears, in newly released correspondence, to have wanted a report on academic fraud written by three faculty members not to go too hard on the university for fear it might prompt further interest from the NCAA, college athletics’ governing body. Boxill wrote the authors that she was concerned about emphasis on the bogus classes. The NCAA doesn’t usually get involved in academic fraud investigations unless it appears there has been an intention to help athletes in ways above other students. That seems to be what Boxill was concerned about. UNC officials rationalized that there was not an athletics-academic connection with the bogus courses because other students took them as well. Boxill, of course, should not have been involved in shading the report. The philosophy department lecturer would not comment to The News & Observer. In one email to those who wrote the report, she explained she wanted to talk because she didn’t want her email comments “to show up in the N&O.” The university’s response to the problems in the football program, and the ensuing revelations about academic counseling and those phony courses all have contributed to ongoing embarrassment for a university that once prided itself on its academic and athletics integrity. Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/07/24/3054542/how-much-more-at-unc-chapel-hill.html#storylink=cpy |
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| abb | Jul 25 2013, 04:55 AM Post #4 |
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DeCock: UNC faculty silence has spoken volumes Published: July 24, 2013 Updated 11 hours ago Faculty report changed Earlier drafts of the faculty report said: “Although we may never know for certain, it was our impression from multiple interviews that the involvement of Deborah Crowder seems to have been that of an athletics supporter who was extremely close to personnel in Athletics, and who managed to use the system to help players by directing them to enroll in courses in the African and Afro-American Studies department that turned out to be aberrant or irregularly taught.” The final version said: “Although we may never know for certain, it was our impression from multiple interviews that a department staff member managed to use the system to help players by directing them to enroll in courses in the African and Afro-American Studies Department that turned out to be aberrant or irregularly taught.” In the almost three years since former chancellor Holden Thorp first admitted that academic fraud was part of the original football scandal at North Carolina, one of the most surprising developments has been the role the faculty has played. Through it all, through the NCAA sanctions for the football program, through the stunning revelations that the Department of African and Afro-American Studies was a factory of no-show classes and grade changes benefiting a large number of athletes, through each embarrassing blow to the academic integrity of one of the nation’s great public universities, the faculty has been almost entirely absent. Complicit, by collective silence. Complicit, in the case of Jan Boxill, by action. The News & Observer’s Dan Kane discovered emails documenting Boxill’s role in removing key information from a draft report that highlighted connections between the athletic department and academic improprieties in the African studies department. It was a shocking example of how far the North Carolina faculty has gone in defense of athletics. Boxill, the chairman of the faculty council, explicitly wanted to avoid arousing the interest of the NCAA. She also has ties to the athletic department, having served as an academic adviser and as a women’s basketball broadcaster. Thorp had his own ties to athletics, although they were personal, not professional. At times, he seemed like a fan first, a steely-eyed administrator second. It took him months to come around to the obvious conclusion that Butch Davis had to go. He was for too long in denial that this sort of thing could happen at North Carolina. He also commissioned the Martin Report, in all its inadequacy. Jim Martin, an honorable, respected, dignified man of distinguished service to the state of North Carolina, ended up the figurehead of a report that posed few legitimate questions and answered fewer, a whitewash. It’s not hard to understand why some faculty may not have thought it worth speaking out. Many had confidence in Thorp, a longtime colleague, and taking a more aggressive public stance would have meant crossing him. (Thorp has since been replaced by former Dartmouth provost Carol Folt, who arrived on campus earlier this month.) It was also easy to see this as compartmentalized, limited to athletics and the African studies department, not relevant to the university at large. The Boxill emails may change that, once professors and students start returning to campus next month. So far only a few lone voices have spoken, most notably history professor Jay Smith, who wrote an op-ed column for the Daily Tar Heel student newspaper in January decrying the lack of interest on the part of his colleagues. “There have been no demonstrations, no petitions, no teach-ins and few public comments,” Smith wrote. Speaking at a forum on the future of intercollegiate athletics in Chapel Hill last year, public policy professor Hodding Carter III lamented exactly this kind of inaction. “As far as I can see, on one campus after another, the silence of the faculty is very much the silence of the lambs,” Carter said, “allowing the slaughter of the integrity of the institutions they serve to go forward.” The late Bill Friday was on the stage that night, a great man who cared deeply about both the University of North Carolina and the future of college athletics. He championed the idea to put control of college sports in the hands of university presidents, thinking academia was up to the challenge of overseeing athletics. Perhaps the disclosure of Boxill’s role will serve as a catalyst for more decisive action on the part of her colleagues, because North Carolina is making a mockery of Friday’s dream. That’s no way to honor the legacy of a man who deserves better, or a school that once stood for something more. Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/07/24/3054500/decock-unc-faculty-silence-has.html#storylink=cpy |
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| abb | Jul 25 2013, 04:57 AM Post #5 |
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http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2013/07/uncs-cover-up-culture Jul 25, 2013 The Daily Tar Heel UNC's cover-up culture This week, The News & Observer reported that Faculty Council chairwoman Jan Boxill pushed the authors of a 2012 report on academic fraud to water down its language — the latest in a long line of blows to the reputation of University leadership. More than an ethical failing on Boxill’s part, the case is yet another instance of UNC’s unwillingness to take transparency seriously. Like nearly every other revelation in the now years-long academic scandal, Boxill’s actions were uncovered through an outside investigation — not self-reported by the University. And as news items pile up about administrative cover-ups, it’s time to ask when UNC will take some responsibility for its image. The Boxill debacle has made one thing abundantly clear — even as the University claims to be coming clean, there are still wrongs to be uncovered and people at UNC who know about them. If administrators continue to let the scandal play out in piecemeal incidents with no serious attempt to shine sunlight on University problems, UNC may never be able to repair its reputation. It may hurt, but it’s time to rip off the Band-Aid. |
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| chatham | Jul 25 2013, 08:30 AM Post #6 |
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The REV Barber willbe losing h is money.... Why do you think he has been working so hard against this legislature. http://civitasreview.com/politicians/nc-budget-cuts-most-political-non-profit-funding/ NC Budget Cuts Most Political Non-Profit Funding =================  BUDGET ZEROES OUT BARBER'S BAND pic and headline credit... carolina plott hound |
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| abb | Jul 25 2013, 12:24 PM Post #7 |
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http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/usc-student-says-campus-police-decided-she-wasnt USC Student Alleges Campus Police Decided She Wasn’t Raped Because He Didn’t Orgasm Zoe Schlanger 12:38 PM EDT, Wednesday July 24, 2013 The University of Southern California is facing a federal civil rights investigation after students filed a complaint that alleged the school ignored campus rape and failed to prosecute attackers even after they confessed. One anonymous USC student involved in the complaint said that campus police had decided she wasn't raped because her alleged attacker did not orgasm, the Huffington Post reported Monday. "Because he stopped, it was not rape," she was told, per the complaint. "Even though his penis penetrated your vagina, because he stopped, it was not a crime." The campus police did not refer the student's case to the Los Angeles police department. Another student, according to the complaint, was told by the university Department of Public Safety that women should not "go out, get drunk and expect not to get raped" when she tried to report a rape. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is investigating potential violations of Title IX, the federal gender equality law that criminilizes a failure to respond to claims of sexual violence. |
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