Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Editorial: Keep UVa donors out in the sunshine
The university wants to keep secrets. Lawmakers shouldn't let it.
From the RoundTable blog
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State Sen. Edd Houck says he's a strong supporter of open-government laws. But he is carrying a bill in the Senate this year that would exempt the University of Virginia from a portion of the Freedom of Information Act.
UVa wants to keep private the names of donors who ask for anonymity when making gifts. Houck says he filed the bill out of respect for the university, which is his alma mater. His higher loyalty should be to the people of Virginia.
They have a right to know who, besides themselves, is supporting their public institutions.
Houck, a Spotsylvania Democrat, and Del. Glenn Oder, a Newport News Republican, have filed companion bills in the General Assembly, giving the issue an air of bipartisanship. But lawmakers of both parties should look askance at any effort to punch an unnecessary hole in the FOIA.
The proposed legislation would allow UVa to deny Freedom of Information Act requests for its entire fund-raising database, which holds huge amounts of information about its donors, from Social Security numbers to estimated net worth to contact information. Instead, the university would have to give out only a donor's name, the size and date of a contribution and its designated purpose.
Those provisions lend the bills an unwarranted veneer of respectability.
People should be able to keep personal information like Social Security numbers and some financial information confidential.
But the legislation also would let UVa withhold the names of donors who ask for anonymity.
The director of the Virginia Press Association points out that such a cloak of secrecy could hide favoritism in decisions about hiring, procurement and admissions. A UVa official pooh-poohed those concerns. The university has lots of internal checks to protect against anyone having undue influence, he said.
Maybe so. Those checks might even be working well now.
But if a curtain of anonymity comes down around donors who request it, how will the public know if those curbs continue to do the job?
Even Houck has reservations, he says, about cutting off public access to some parts of UVa's donor database.
He should listen to his better instincts and withdraw the legislation. If Houck can't bring himself to put the public interest ahead of a fundraising campaign at Mr. Jefferson's university, Virginia lawmakers should let the bills die.
