Editorial: Regents should act as a whole

Friday, Nov. 15, 2002 | 10:08 a.m.

The time has come for the Board of Regents to set policy for itself as well as the state's University and Community College System. The perfect time would be at its meeting next month, when the actions of Regent Linda Howard will be reviewed. A year ago Howard asked the system's staff to provide her with the name of every student of every freshman class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Nevada, Reno, since 1997. She also asked that their race, course of study, high school grades and other private information be provided to her. The staff complied, giving her more than 1,000 pages of information. Last month it was revealed that she had also requested information about a student who had written unflatteringly about her in the UNLV newspaper, as well as information about Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, a part-time UNLV employee.

Howard has given general explanations, saying she needed information about the freshmen to strengthen her argument against a proposal to raise admission standards at the state's universities. As for the student writer, she said the tone of the article frightened her and she wanted to verify that the writer was a student, and not perhaps some member of a hate group writing under an assumed name. Regarding Gates, she said some of her constituents had suggested the commissioner was the beneficiary of preferential treatment.

Because Howard is a public official, the Board of Regents' review of her actions should be open for all to hear and decide. In our view Howard abused her authority and violated the privacy of students and Gates. Regents should be required to obtain the permission of any employee or student before looking at their records. At the December meeting, Howard should account fully and publicly for her actions.

Meanwhile, a central question for the board in setting its own governing policy should be: What are the limits of authority for individual board members? Should they, unbeknownst to their colleagues, be off plowing through reams of records as they conduct studies of their own choosing? The board should adopt bylaws restricting such activity. During a regular board meeting, Howard should have requested that staff conduct the studies she attempted on her own. Had she done this, we suspect the agenda for the December meeting could have been dominated by urgent public issues, rather than this time-consuming, polarizing internal problem.