Inviting public distrust

Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

How will anyone now be able to completely trust research papers, books and essays published by Nevada university system professors, or even trust their public comments and classroom lectures?

The Board of Regents, which sets policy for the Nevada System of Higher Education, voted Friday to continue an existing policy that keeps all outside work by professors cloaked in secrecy.

No member of the public, under the policy, has the right to determine through a search of records if a professor's output could be susceptible to influence by a private employer.

The board voted 10-2 for the policy, which allows professors to earn outside income without having to disclose it publicly. The policy sets an internal reporting procedure, but it bars the public from ever learning whether the procedure is effective in preventing conflicts.

Las Vegas Sun reporters Jeff German and Steve Kanigher reported last summer that most professors were not filing required reports documenting their private income. They also learned that administrators were nonchalant about the reports, neither seeing to it that they were filed nor reading them if they did happen to be filed.

And when they sought to examine reports on file, they were denied access.

After the Sun stories, administrators vowed to tighten the internal procedure for collecting the reports, examining them and resolving any conflicts. But with the public barred from its watchdog role, what's to prevent the procedure from breaking down again?

On Friday, Steve Sisolak and James Dean Leavitt were the only regents voting for public access to these records, in keeping with policies at other universities including Ohio State, Wisconsin, Arizona and North Carolina State.

In this matter, we believe the Board of Regents failed in its responsibility to the public and to academic integrity.