Open meetings suit seeks to void UI presidential search

IOWA CITY, Ia. — A retired professor has filed a lawsuit arguing that the University of Iowa presidential search committee repeatedly violated the open meetings law and that its actions should be voided.

The petition filed by Harrold Hammond, an emeritus professor in the College of Dentistry, adds another layer of controversy to the search, which ended earlier this month with the selection of former IBM executive Bruce Harreld. It asks a judge to void the actions of the 21-member search committee, which vetted dozens of candidates before recommending four finalists to the Iowa Board of Regents.

Faculty, staff, students and alumni have expressed outrage over the board's decision to select Harreld despite his lack of experience in higher education administration. He was picked over the president of Oberlin College and the provosts at Tulane and Ohio State. Regents have touted Harreld's experience working in major corporations such as IBM, Boston Market and Kraft Foods.

Hammond's petition alleges the search committee held meetings that were improperly closed and in locations that were inaccessible to the public. Among other meetings, the lawsuit challenges two days of closed interviews the committee conducted with nine finalists last month at a hotel near a Chicago airport.

"Meetings are supposed to be in an accessible location even if closed. Having a 7 a.m. meeting in the Chicago airport isn't very accessible," said Hammond's lawyer, Greg Geerdes, who filed a legal request to committee members last week seeking "a whole variety of documents" related to the search.

An assistant attorney general defending the search committee denied Hammond's allegations in an answer to the lawsuit earlier this month, saying committee members "substantially complied with the provisions" of the law.

Geerdes had warned committee members in March letter that he believed out-of-state airport hotel meetings would violate the law, which requires public bodies to meet at reasonably accessible locations. He also argued that he saw no justification for the committee to close entire meetings to discuss potential candidates in executive session.

To justify closing those meetings, the committee cited an Iowa law that allows governmental bodies to meet privately to discuss personnel actions that may cause "needless and irreparable injury" to one's reputation if held publicly. Geerdes told committee members in his March letter that being considered for the University of Iowa presidency "does not result in damage to a candidate's reputation, and therefore does not permit the blanket closing of all meetings at which a particular candidate is discussed."

Hammond filed a similar lawsuit, which had some success, after Sally Mason was named president in 2007. In a 2009 settlement, the search committee admitted to violating the open meetings law in four different ways, including by failing to give proper notice of meetings and discussing matters in closed session that were required to be discussed openly. The university promised that in the future, presidential search committees would "take thorough and sufficient steps" to insure compliance, including training on the requirements of the Open Meetings Law. The school also paid Hammond's legal fees of nearly $66,000.

Hammond declined an interview request, but wrote in an email he was glad the media was taking note of his lawsuit filed a month ago in Johnson County. In a recent letter to the editor of the Iowa City Press-Citizen newspaper, Hammond said the next president was being "bulldozed through at lightning-like speed."

"Regent President Bruce Rastetter appears to have played the Presidential Search and Selection Committee as if it were his own personal violin," Hammond wrote.