The family of Michael McKinney, the student shot and killed by a University Police Officer, is suing the university for $100 million.
It is about time. The university must be taken to task -- not necessarily for McKinney's death, but for the way it shuts the public out of the business of a state-run university.
When the McKinneys called Ball State to find out why their son was shot, they received vague answers. Suggestions they gave to improve campus safety were ignored.
This is an example of how for years Board members, university officials and administrators have kept the Ball State Community in the dark.
The Board of Trustees has shut out the faculty and students from the presidential search committee since the day former president Blaine Brownell announced he was leaving Ball State.
The trustees were asked why there were rumors about Brownell's travel record. On Oct. 21, the DAILY NEWS reported that trustees Kimberly Hood Jacobs and Tom DeWeese both refused to comment on rumors about former President Blaine Brownell's travel schedule, except saying that some Board members had different opinions on whether Brownell traveled too much.
The university shut out the memory of the Werner family this summer. The university seized the house, despite protest from campus and the family. It demolished the home of a family that gave to Ball State and advocated public transportation to build a parking structure.
A family's connection with the university must not have been tight enough to warrant enough respect to keep the house.
Looking back farther, it seems that this keep-quiet mentality is a habit with the trustees.
Nov. 7, 2001: Melanie Scott, then student member of the Board of Trustees, said that the board "pretty much decides everything we're going to vote" in its executive sessions.
"That's why the public meeting is so condensed, because we've already ironed everything out," Scott said. "We are a board, and we need to be unified."
By law, decisions cannot be made in an executive session.
Tell us a closed search is lawful. Hand-pick the presidential search committees. Shut out faculty and students.
It's a common practice here, and it's cowardly.
Now things have come full circle.
The McKinneys have reminded us that we cannot continue being numb to this.
If Ball State had given the McKinney family the answers they wanted, his family might not feel the need for a $100 million lawsuit.
Maybe the only thing that gets Ball State's attention is a dollar sign.
Don't give us an answer, just refuse to comment. It's not a matter of lying as much as it is a matter of hiding the truth.
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