University system to appeal hiring ruling

Jeffrey Libby

Monday, Oct. 2, 2000 | 11:46 a.m.

Just a few hours after a District Court ruled Friday that state higher education officials must open the hiring process of university system presidents to the public, university attorneys announced they would appeal the decision to the Nevada Supreme Court.

But the appeal is not based on a desire to keep interviews closed in the search for a new president of the Community College of Southern Nevada, regents say.

Instead, they hope to accomplish two things. They want to clarify the role of the president as a public employee, not a public official. And they hope to preserve the privacy of state employees, something that attorneys suggest could be threatened by Judge Michael Douglas' ruling.

On Friday, Douglas ruled in favor of a suit filed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, ordering the university system to open interviews that had been scheduled as closed to the public. Those Friday interviews were canceled and have not yet been rescheduled.

"We agreed we'll do it (the interviews) in the open," said Thalia Dondero, chairwoman of the Board of Regents. "The candidates signed a document that said they were willing to have the interviews in the open."

But regents hire presidents, vice presidents and chancellors as employees of the system, Dondero said, and as such, receive periodic performance reviews.

"We're elected," Dondero said, "and it's our responsibility to hire those people."

Attorneys for the newspaper argued Friday, however, that presidents have discretion over large state-funded budgets and exercise limited judicial authority. Those responsibilities elevate them to the rank of public officials, not public employees, attorneys said. And according to open-meeting laws, the hiring of public officials must be done openly.

Regent Douglas Seastrand, chairman of the search committee for a new president of CCSN, is concerned that classified employees might also be considered public employees if the District Court ruling is upheld.

"It's really a privacy issue for the people employed by the system," Seastrand said. "And the ramifications (of the ruling) are significant. Anyone employed by the state could no longer be considered an employee, but a public employee. I mean, can you imagine if every time you had a personnel session you had to let all the world know?"

Seastrand is also concerned that the delay in the hiring process could leave CCSN without a new president when the Legislature convenes in February.