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Sunday, June 17, 2007

All-Out Warfare...

...has been declared between a newspaper and an important local university. Here's hoping the Palm Beach Post gets a Pulitzer for it.

UD has already chronicled the squalid relationship between bigtime donor, fake degree holder, and unscrupulous businessman Barry Kaye and Florida Atlantic University. She has SOS'd the letter of indignation FAU's president wrote to the Post after it published a scathing account of the cynical and mercenary ways of FAU's top administrators.

Now the Palm Beach Post has done its own SOS of the same letter, on its editorial page, and it's a stunner:

Florida Atlantic University is circulating a multicount indictment of this newspaper that is inaccurate, dishonest and untruthful.

Yet in the first paragraph of a letter FAU sent last week to "the University family," President Frank Brogan, Foundation President Leslie Corley and board Chairman Norman Tripp praise the university for striving "every day to provide accurate, honest and truthful information." If FAU had done that for the past 10 weeks, FAU wouldn't have a complaint with The Post.

This began April 3, when staff writer Kimberly Miller reported what FAU called the resignation of Lawrence Davenport, the university's chief fund-raiser. Curiously, though, Mr. Davenport got a severance of nearly $600,000. Why a severance for someone who resigned? Why had Mr. Brogan failed to notify FAU's fund-raising foundation, especially since the "resignation" letter had been dated March 19? Why didn't all the trustees know about the severance?

Trying to explain, Mr. Brogan sounded like a student ducking questions from a professor. It hadn't really been a resignation, because there were "significant differences" between the president and the fund-raiser. But why would someone fired for cause deserve a severance? Firing him would have looked bad, and none of the severance will come directly from the university. In fact, it will - from concession money that otherwise would go toward student programs.

Accurate? Honest? Truthful?



Then in late April, Ms. Miller reported that FAU mega-patron Barry Kaye is marketing his life insurance business by calling himself an FAU professor and the holder of a doctoral degree. He is neither. Mr. Kaye may have donated $20 million, but colleges aren't supposed to express their thanks by handing out fake credentials.

It must be something about Boca. In 1992, The News of Boca Raton reported that philanthropist "Countess" Henrietta de Hoernle had bought her title. Ms. de Hoernle threatened to withhold donations unless the paper apologized. After charities fawned over her and slammed the newspaper, she relented.

Similarly, FAU and other organizations that benefit from Mr. Kaye's donations have defended his good works. The letter from FAU says that his "generosity should not be vilified," as it presumably has been by The Post. But the paper never has "vilified" his generosity. In fact, The Post ran an editorial on Jan. 18 praising Mr. Kaye's gift to FAU of $16 million.

But in an editorial two weeks ago, The Post again raised the main point: Does FAU care that Mr. Kaye is misrepresenting himself? The letter from FAU never addresses this point. The Post asked for a revision so we could run it, but FAU declined. [This bit is particularly damning: The president of FAU simply will not address the bogus degree issue. That's as good as admitting that the Post is right about it.] As with the Davenport affair, FAU is talking around a controversy rather than talk about it.



Instead, predictably, FAU is blaming the newspaper. News coverage of the two stories, and editorials that followed, "malign and damage the reputation of Florida Atlantic University and philanthropist Barry Kaye." The paper is "damaging the reputation" of FAU and "hurting each and every alumnus ... and also students working towards their degree (sic)." The paper's "relentless onslaught ... has the potential to negatively impact the university's relationship with donors."

From that dishonest hyperbole, people at FAU might think that The Post has been the university's worst enemy for years. They would be wrong.

For three years, The Post has supported FAU's expanded medical program, which starts next year. In 2005, The Post saluted FAU's Holocaust studies program. And since Mr. Brogan, Mr. Corley and Mr. Tripp have short memories, The Post crusaded nearly 20 years ago against a new university in Broward County that would have reduced FAU's reach and influence.

But this paper also has sounded off about things that actually could damage FAU's reputation. The best example was the illegal attempt in 2002 to give President Anthony Catanese a going-away Corvette. Now, as then, FAU's problems are secrecy and special favors - not this paper's stories, which were accurate, and its editorials.

FAU's trustees and the foundation members seem to think that their job is to protect this public university from scrutiny, not to ask questions. That isn't the way to get to the truth.