Knight lawsuit sent back

This weekend has brought yet another turn in the ongoing legal saga regarding the firing of former men's basketball coach Bob Knight.\nThe Indiana Supreme Court declined Friday to hear the lawsuit filed by the Indianapolis Star, and the case was passed back down to a Morgan County Judge to make the decision. \nFred Eichhorn, president of the IU board of trustees, said the Indiana State Court of Appeals made partial ruling, but the final aspect of the case was still to be decided. \n"There is still a small part that remains in court relating to my notes and [John Walda's] and whether they are public material," Eichhorn said.\nEichhorn and Walda, who were members of the board at the time of Knight's firing, led the investigation into Knight's case.\nThe case dates back to October 2000, just a month after Knight's firing, when the Star sued IU over the release of information regarding the firing.\nStar Editor Dennis Ryerson said in a previous IDS article that any information regarding the dismissal of a public official should be made open to the public.\nAs Eichhorn explains it, there are two possibilities as to how the judge can rule.\n"The court can rule that our notes and investigatory records are public documents, or that they cannot be released, and that would be the end of it," Eichhorn said.\nThe argument for keeping the information private is that Walda and Eichhorn are also lawyers. Thus, IU is arguing that the documents would be confidential under attorney-client privilege.\nThe information in question regards IU's findings in the decision to fire Knight after he allegedly was involved in inappropriate physical conduct with then-freshman Kent Harvey, which violated a zero-tolerance behavior policy. Any other information that may contain students' personal information, however, might be kept confidential.\nEichhorn said he did not know how long it could take for the case to be resolved.\n-- Contact staff writer Brian Janosch at bjanosch@indiana.edu.