Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1976 [PAGE 354]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1975]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

343

be forthcoming shortly. He also stated that plans for the establishment of a national committee advisory to the Institute were in process, and recommendations would soon be brought forward.

OLD AND NEW BUSINESS Report from Stuart Summers, Student Trustee

Mr. Stuart Summers, student trustee from the Urbana-Champaign campus, asked permission to make the following statement with regard to a pending lawsuit:

On June 20, I informed President Corbally that I would not assign my name to the Writ of Mandamus Cosgrove v. Corbally and Peltason. Whether or not my action will cause the suit to be dismissed remains a legal question, but I would like to report on my decision. The suit was filed using the COPE task force reports as a means to answer two questions: O n e : Does the student trustee have the same rights and privileges as the voting trustees ? Two: What are the rights, duties, obligations, and privileges of trustees, especially as they apply to access to University documents ? Both of these questions are logical and deserved to be answered. The first, dealing with the rights and privileges of student trustees, has for the most part been answered in the legal opinion of the Attorney General. While this opinion is being challenged at other institutions this Board has shown a willingness to accept the Attorney General's opinion. Other parts of the question are continual and should remain that way to offer some flexibility for each student trustee. The second question, regarding the COPE documents in particular, and access to University documents as a whole, is a good question, but I feel that the Complaint used the wrong issue in picking the COPE documents. I'm sure that the Board will agree that we should have access to financial documents, contracts, etc., but in an item such as the COPE reports, several attorneys have convinced me that the Board does have the right to determine the rules of confidentiality of documents such as these. Several precedents of a similar nature were explained to me regarding that opinion. My main reason in my decision is that I don't believe that courts of law are the optimum avenue for answers to these questions. The costs of litigation are high, and it is students in the end who eventually are affected by the costs. On the one hand, students contribute to the Student Legal Service, and then realize that, while the Service is spending its time and monies on this suit, it has less resources to help more students with other legal problems, such as landlord-tenant disputes, small claims, and divorce. On the other hand, when the University appropriates funds for the defense of suits, the money comes from the same funds which are used to educate us. I feel that I would be shirking my responsibilities to students and the University as a whole by asking that monies be spent to get a court to decide issues that I was elected to help decide. Questions such as the ones raised in the C O P E complaint are ones which are better answered by us, members of the Board, not a court.