The Board of Regents’ secret arrangement to give former NIU President Clyde Wingfield a one-year leave of absence with pay appears to be in violation of the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

While it is up to the courts to decide whether the Regents’ actions are in violation of law, they certainly have violated the spirit of the law as the Illinois Attorney General has pointed out.

The arrangement that allows Wingfield to assume a non-paid research post in Washington and still receive his $70,000 a year paycheck from NIU was decided in a closed executive session. Later during a public meeting, the Regents approved the decisions from the closed meeting summarily without informing the public what those decisions entailed.

Further, it has been common practice for the Regents to approve decisions made in executive session summarily. This clearly violates the intent of an open meetings act.

The law was created not for press, but for the public’s right to know the details of final decisions made by a governing body. Especially when these decisions concern the use of taxpayer’s money.

The university community would not know that the Wingfield arrangement had been made if The Northern Star had not learned of it.

One can only wonder what other secret arrangements have been made in this manner.

Some Regents members said it would be too time-consuming to inform the public what they have decided. Perhaps, they should at least distribute a written copy of the details of their decisions.

The press also deserves some criticism for trusting the Regents to conduct business in accordance with the spirit of the law.

It is the responsibility of the public and a free press to scrutinize future actions of this body to see that the public’s right to know is respected.