A lawsuit by two former Northern Star editors against the NIU Board of Trustees has been settled, requiring the university to abide by strict Illinois Open Meetings Act regulations during future presidential searches.

Filed March 13, 2000, the lawsuit stemmed from BOT misconduct alleged by former Star editor in chief Joe Biesk and former managing editor Kevin Wendt. The editors sued after trustees held an emergency meeting Feb. 21, 2000, at the Hoffman Estates campus. According to a Feb. 22 Northern Star article, trustees deemed the gathering a “special” meeting but did not notify the newspaper within 48 hours of its start, a violation of the state Open Meetings Act.

A BOT-chosen search committee later picked NIU President John Peters from a pool of four finalists.

“The BOT, as far as the board is concerned, has been in compliance with the Open Meetings Act and it intends to comply with those obligations in the future,” said Cary Donham, one of three attorneys with Chicago-based Shefsky & Froelich Ltd., which represented NIU. “The case was resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.”

Donham said the case’s end won’t mean any substantial changes for NIU trustees. But Jerry Huston, a lawyer with Lord, Bissell & Brook, which represented Biesk and Wendt, said he hopes NIU will take the decision to a higher level.

“The Open Meetings Act is a floor, not a ceiling,” Huston said. “It sets out the legal minimum for public notice and access to government meetings. I hope that this settlement signals that NIU is ready to go above and beyond these minimums and really embrace the idea of true public access and involvement.”

Beyond their allegation of an illegal meeting, Biesk and Wendt also disagreed with a “gag order” that all 22 presidential search committee members were

required to sign. It prevented them from disclosing any search information to the public.

“Hopefully, in future searches for any type of high-ranking officials at NIU, those people who choose the final candidates and make the ultimate hiring decisions aren’t subject to gag orders,” Biesk said. “NIU shouldn’t restrict the rights of those officials because we should know all that goes on, as members of the public and taxpayers.”

“There’s a difference between protecting privacy and restricting free speech,” he added. “Gag orders of any kind are not of an ideal situation.”

Wendt said he understands that at some point during presidential searches, candidates’ names should be held to protect their job security at other schools. But, he said, public opinion should be solicited as soon as final names are considered.

“Any search that a university does should be open,” Wendt said. “Sure, there are certain people who aren’t going to get picked, and at some point you don’t want to throw names around, but the process is more open now. Everyone should feel part of it.”

Huston commended the former editors’ persistence with the suit, which was settled more than a year after the lawsuit was filed. A former Star editor himself, Huston said outside support can make a difference for a newspaper.

“Although they’ve left the university environment and are out in the real world, they still are very passionate in their belief that the students, faculty and the rest of the NIU community deserve to have a role in the way things are done at NIU,” Huston said.

Biesk and Wendt hope the settlement will mean a more open search for NIU’s next police chief, but NIU General Counsel George Shur said that search is more at a campus level than the presidential search. Trustees give final approval for a police chief, but they don’t deal directly with the search.

The former editors believe their suit has heightened the newspaper’s role as a check on state boards and officials.

“I’m glad that we’ve come to a conclusion that we as journalists can be proud we’ve fought for,” Wendt said. “The university now knows that if Star alums are out of school, we’ll still be a watchdog. And the Northern Star can keep an eye on the university so that our rights as students are maintained and people who should have a right to access these types of searches can.”