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[Note: This material is copyright by the Press-Citizen, and is reproduced here as a matter of "fair use" for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any other use may require the prior approval of the Iowa City Press-Citizen.]

Gartner was defending the regents against criticism for using e-mail to discuss issues that should be discussed in public meetings. But his letter just as well could have been a criticism of the Skorton situation.

In fact, Gartner is right on target. E-mails are -- or at least should be -- part of the public record. It's simply outrageous -- almost unbelievable -- that university officials implemented a policy in which e-mail deleted by Skorton would be deleted permanently from his computer as well as from any network drives or back up system. The university explains that the arrangement came about because Skorton continued to see patients as a cardiologist and occasionally received confidential medical records. But there would have been many other ways to ensure patient confidentially without giving the UI president carte banche to erase potential public records from existence.

It's equally amazing that the university would clear Skorton's hard drive without having anyone assess whether information of legal, historic or research value remained on the drive. The UI Records Management policy state that the "UI archivist will have the opportunity to examine and review all UI records selection for disposal to determine whether the records proposed for disposal have research or historical value to the UI." If not the UI archivist, some other party should have been invited to evaluate the files.

The UI Records Management policy does allow "convenience records and non-records (to be) destroyed at the discretion of the user." University officials claim that Skorton was the best judge on whether e-mailed advice to him constituted an official record or a "non-record," but the President's Office Records Retention Schedule says that all "Correspondence -- acknowledgements, congratulations, etc." should be kept permanently in paper form. Surely paper and electronic correspondence that discusses actual policy decisions should be kept permanently as well.

Perhaps Gartner and the regents should launch an investigation into this destruction of public records. After all, the regents are the ones that are supposed to hold university presidents accountable. And it would make much more sense than the regents' foray into the recent hospital security breach into the files of former Director of University Hospitals John Colloton.