Ole Miss must learn to be forthright with information

The verdict is in. The token punishment handed down. The guilty ones are sorry, they will learn from their mistakes and life will go on at the University of Mississippi.

The case of the Kappa Sigma pledge party that sent five female students to a local hospital on Nov. 17 is closed.

At least that's the official story. Aside from a slight variation in punishment, the story echoes the official versions of several recent fraternity investigations. Almost all of them have one thing in common: they don't say much.

In some ways, the university's version of what happened in November rivals the irresponsibility of the Kappa Sigma fraternity -- yet the fraternity is the only one being punished.

The day after the pledge party incident, the university went into panic mode. The public relations department quickly released a statement and normal media relations between the media and campus police were suspended.

The public relations' statement was only eight sentences long. Only one sentence had information about the actual incident.

"University of Mississippi officials have temporarily suspended the Kappa Sigma fraternity, after a Wednesday evening campus event resulted in five female students being taken to a local hospital," the sentence read.

The other seven sentences contained little useful information. Most contained nothing more than official rhetoric aimed at making readers believe that the Kappa Sigma fraternity would be immediately summoned to an Inquisition hearing because of officials' heart-felt concern for student safety.

The statement did not say anything about what actually occurred on the night of Nov. 17. What's most alarming about the statement is the fact that it neglected to say why five female students were taken to a local hospital -- an error that soon ignited rumors about alcohol, drugs and rapes.

Since normal media relations between the media and campus police had been suspended, the rumors were not confirmed or denied in a proper, timely manner. Police officers were compelled to forward all questions to Acting Vice Chancellor for Student Life Thomas Wallace, who typically kept his answers simple: "We're investigating the incident."

Officials' silence didn't make sense. Students, faculty and staff had legitimate concerns about the Kappa Sigma incident, and those concerns weren't being addressed. The message seemed to be clear: Administrators appeared to be more concerned about the university having a negative headline on the front page of the Clarion-Ledger than they were about the needs of people on their campus.

Despite a lack of cooperation from police and administrators, The Daily Mississippian staff decided to try to address the concerns expressed by various members of the campus community.

In December, The DM staff sent a letter to former University Police Chief Mike Stewart. The letter requested access to incident and log reports that related to the Kappa Sigma fraternity incident. A copy of the letter was also hand-deliverd to Wallace in January. State law requires a government agency to respond in writing to a formal record request within 14 business days. We're still waiting for our written response.

University officials have told our staff that they don't want to release the requested police records because it could interfere with a criminal investigation and reveal the identity of innocent people involved in the incident.

There are two problems with the officials' excuse. According to Joe Murphy, the Kappa Sigma faculty advisor, police are not pursuing criminal charges against any members of the fraternity. If police are not pursuing charges, then it's very difficult for them to release any records that would interfere with an investigation.

The second problem with the excuse is that university officials are implying that The DM is only attempting to get police records for the sake of a sensational story that would smear the names of innocent people who expect confidentiality from police. The implication is an unfair insult to The DM staff.

Getting names of alleged victims and witnesses who were promised confidentiality is not our priority. We simply want to be able to tell the campus what did or didn't happen. If someone has alleged that they were raped, we feel that it's important for the sake of campus safety that people know a rape was reported -- but we don't feel like everyone has to know who did the reporting.

The chancellor, the university attorney and others notified about the request have neglected to tell the public that they could simply delete any names or identifiable data listed on the reports and give us the remainder of the information. We would gladly accept such a compromise.

Finally, 93 days after the now-infamous pledge party, officials have addressed rumors related to alcohol and drugs -- but they still haven't directly addressed the subject of rape.

Murphy said that university officials knew the results of negative drug tests within days after the incident. The fact that officials did not release this information as soon as it was available is unfair to both the public at-large and the members of Kappa Sigma.

University officials also dropped the ball by ushering all proceedings related to the incident behind closed doors. Sanctions against the fraternity were decided in a hearing by the Committee of Student Organizations. The meetings are not announced, and the university has a strict policy against allowing the public or the media to attend disciplinary hearings -- even if they involve a potential crime.

Officials use a federal law called the Buckley Amendment to keep you from knowing any information about hearings. The Buckley Amendment is a federal privacy law that protects academic records. It's intent is to prevent random strangers from obtaining your transcript and other similar records. The law doesn't say anything about fraternity hearings.

The University of Mississippi is an extension of the state government. Most meetings conducted at the university are considered government meetings and must follow procedures outlined in the state Open Meetings Law. Currently, officials' don't see a need to make fraternity hearings follow those procedures -- a policy that creates another barrier between silence and presenting the truth.

Almost all of the information on the Kappa Sigma incident that The DM has published has come from two university press releases. The first release came on the day after the incident; the second came 93 days after the incident. No law required the university to write the releases, so officials are guilty of at least one count of generosity, but the press releases aren't enough. Neither one says what exactly happened on the night of Nov. 17.

It's almost unfair that the Kappa Sigma fraternity has to bear all of the guilt and punishment associated with the incident. Yes, the pledge party they hosted on campus that night was irresponsible, but the university's response to the incident has been equally irresponsible.

Administrators have created a hush-hush environment on campus. The chancellor and other top administrators at Ole Miss have performed an exceptional task of promoting the university to the region and the nation, but sometimes that performance has come at a high price. They have created a campus that is afraid to openly discuss its problems.

As long as incidents like the Kappa Sigma pledge party are dealt with in a secretive manner, those types of incidents will happen again and again. Administrators must be forthright with information and openly discuss embarrassing events if they want the positive image that they promote to have any true substance.