The Wyoming Senate passed House Bill 223 on its second reading Monday.
House Bill 223 is a bill that will allow the University of Wyoming to keep the names of university presidential candidates a secret.
While State District Judge Jeffrey Donnell ruled in favor of the media after the university was sued by a handful of newspapers to have the names released, the legislature is still reluctant to have the names revealed to the public.
The case has been cause for debate among UW’s faculty senate as well, which debated whether or not the names should be made public with Resolution 317: Non-Confidentiality in selecting a new president.
The senate failed the resolution at its meeting on Jan. 28 after much disagreement among the faculty.
Donal O’Toole, a veterinarian science professor at the university, argued that the names should be released to comply with Wyoming’s open records laws.
“We have a Wyoming open records law. The press brought a case before a judge who is a very conservative judge and he ruled in favor of the press that this should be an open process,” O’Toole said. “This body has become increasingly powerless. If you want this body to be effective, don’t have folks like Kermit Brown going up to the legislature trying to contest a judicial decision.”
Rep. Brown is one of the sponsors of the bill. Brown has argued that releasing the names would cause some of the candidates to withdraw from consideration.
O’Toole also took issue with the fact that some of the presidential selection process was being made in the House Committee on Minerals, Business, and Economic Development.
“Isn’t that strange? The presidency committee was being made initially in the Minerals Committee. I wonder what that means,” O’Toole said. “This isn’t a case where the press is trying to sell newspapers. Universities are sacred ground and we’re the people who try to maintain the integrity of the university.”
While O’Toole argued that the names should be made public because the faculty had a right to have some participation in the selection, some of the members of Faculty Senate felt that they had been properly represented during the selection.
“I think a process like this is rational and I do think we’ve had enough input. We’ve had input in two rounds, pushing five candidates through to the end. I put my trust in the Board of Trustees and I think they have best interest of the university in heart,” Treva Sprout Ahrenholtz, family and consumer sciences professor, said.
While the faculty senate failed its resolution to allow for more input from it during the selection process, the Wyoming Senate has yet to officially pass House Bill 223. It has passed two readings and will be up for one more reading this week before it can be officially passed.
Other bills that could potentially affect UW include House Bill 105, which would allow people to carry concealed weapons to university events and House Bill 166 which would increase certain amounts of the Hathaway Scholarship for students. Both have been introduced to the Senate.
