Disgusting.

After an entire semester of hearing Barbara Henley cry, moan and bellyache about how she was persecuted because of the Student Association/allocating money mess, it is absolutely repulsive that she now hides behind close doors.

As with the NIU administration, Henley is relying on forgetful college students to further NIU’s own agenda.

Remember in September when Henley, vice president for Student Affairs, gave money to the Campus Activities Board after the SA refused. Well, like a bad sequel, the mess continues.

Henley got her way then. And she is still getting her way.

It has come time to clean up the mess. Henley’s self-appointed advisory committee is helping her spend students’ money without actually breaking the shared governance promise. She shut the public up by locking them out.

And from the locked lips of the students who do get to attend the meetings, it appears as though they have been told by Henley to keep their mouths shut.

Henley is clinging to the law that says advisory meetings are not subject to the Open Meetings Act. Henley’s citing of the law is absolutely correct. Nobody can force her to open the meeting.

owever, the Act also stipulates that no meeting has to be closed. That means no one can force Henley to close the meeting. But whatever the law says, considering the meeting’s content, there is a moral openness that screams to be recognized and that Henley is blatantly ignoring.

Apparently, any hopes that Henley wouldn’t invoke a law simply to make her job a little less troublesome is thrown through her office window. She maintains the meeting is being closed to stimulate free discussion.

This is the same double-talk that got Henley into trouble in the first place. On one hand, Henley says she wants to be the students’ champion.

On the other hand, Henley wants to make the decisions free from scrutiny until she announces what will happen, knowing full well by that time it is too late for students to do anything.

She threw away her self-respect with her double-talk then and deserves to lose the respect of every student on this campus now.

This is college. Hey Barb, you remember, the place where ideas are supposed to flow freely?

Free-flowing discussion is not hiding behind a door like some coward so your ideas don’t meet dissension. Henley’s actions send a clear and painfully loud signal that she is either too afraid to have someone question her ideas or she simply doesn’t care if anyone disagrees.

‘This is my division, and I’ll run it any way I want,’ is the message Henley is sending.

Most assuredly, all of Henley’s cronies will be adamantly defending the students’ beleaguered champion. Henley herself will insist her intentions are upright and direct and that she honestly didn’t think holding closed door meetings would be a big deal.

And that should tell you more about her than anything else. Don’t let Henley and her cronies win and dictate what students need to know. Make it clear we won’t let her get away with it.