Knight suit haunts former IU president

Former IU President Myles Brand and two current high-ranking IU officials will testify next week at a court hearing to decide whether the University must release, under the state's Access to Public Records Act, a report that led to the termination of former men's basketball coach Bob Knight.\nFormer IU board of trustees President John Walda and current trustees President Fred Eichhorn are scheduled to give testimony Wednesday regarding the roles they played in investigating an incident and preparing a report that ended with Knight's firing.\nIU counsel Dorothy Frapwell is also scheduled to testify.\nBrand, now the president of the NCAA, fired Knight in 2000 after the former coach violated a "zero tolerance" behavior policy when he grabbed then-freshman Kent Harvey by the arm.\nBrand installed the "zero tolerance" policy after former player Neil Reed accused Knight of choking him after a basketball practice.\nBrand asked Walda, now the executive director of federal relations for IU, and Eichhorn to investigate the incident. They released their findings in summary form, but the University refused access to notes pertaining to their investigation.\nThe Indianapolis Star filed a lawsuit under Indiana's APRA, which gives both agencies and individuals the right to observe public documents. The Indianapolis Star contends the Walda-Eichhorn report is a public document and is currently seeking its disclosure.\nIU contends Walda and Eichhorn were acting in their capacities as attorneys for the University when they prepared the report for Brand. As the product of attorney work, their notes are privileged information, IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said.\nMacIntyre added the hearing will be "very simply that, to examine the issue of whether or not this is the work product of an attorney and whether or not it's privileged."\nDennis Ryerson, current editor in chief for The Indianapolis Star, said his newspaper disagrees with that view.\n"We think the records we're seeking should be available," Ryerson said. "This is a university official who was fired, and we think it's important for the public to know what happened, what the nature of the investigation was and that's why we're in court."\nRyerson, who was not the editor in chief when the lawsuit was filed, said the newspaper feels it can be "easy for public institutions to keep information from the general public that they serve."\n"They can always come up with another dodge," Ryerson said. \nThe Associated Press reported that Morgan County Judge Jane Spencer Craney will preside over the hearing. All Monroe County judges have recused themselves from the case. \nCraney ruled in November 2001 that IU did not have to release the documents related to Knight's firing because they were "education records," which contained information about students that must be kept private under federal law.\nThe Indianapolis Star appealed, and the Indiana Court of Appeals sent the case back to Craney on a technicality, saying IU may have to turn over the Walda-Eichhorn report if they were acting as trustees and not attorneys.\n-- Contact Senior Writer Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu.