Public has right to question what's happening at “private” Northwestern

Northwestern really isn't a “private” university.

This may come as a shock to parents who wrote checks for $53,000 this year to cover private tuition, room and board. It's not just Northwestern.

DePaul, Loyola, Notre Dame and most other so-called “private” universities aren't private at all. They solicit and receive public funding from the government for research and also benefit from student

federal grants.

So, if you pay taxes, these “private” schools get lots of your money. (The most notable example of a truly private school is Hillsdale College in southern Michigan. It accepts and allows no federal funding for anything. That is another story.)

Despite the use of federal funds at Northwestern, the administration of the university is private. There is no oversight or regulation by a publicly-elected or appointed board, and no public accountability for most decisions.

So, this is about the only place to publicly ask these questions:

What in the world is going on at Northwestern?

Is there a management problem up there in Evanston?

Who's in charge?

The university's purple and white has been turned black and blue the past few months following three eye-opening missteps involving professors and administrators... the very people who are supposed to be

the experts.

The grouping of gaffes features:

Ÿ an explicit, live, in-class sex demonstration from exhibitionists hired by a controversial psychology professor.

Ÿ the public defrocking and professional dismemberment of successful, well-known Medill project head David Protess, who helped exonerate wrongly convicted death row inmates.

Ÿ volleys of nasty allegations and legal wrangling between Protess and university officials who charge each other with lying and covering up.

Ÿ the most recent embarrassment occurred at Northwestern's famous Kellogg School of Business when a son of Libyan dictator/terrorist Moammar Gadhafi was allowed to attend three days of graduate classes under an alias.

All of these events have one thing in common: they were terribly managed by Northwestern public relations officials and top administrators once they leaked out of the “private” campus and became public.

The case of Gadhafi's son visiting campus in February is the most egregious example of ineptness. When Northwestern/Kellogg officials were notified that Khamis Gadhafi wanted to sit in on an executive MBA class taught by Dr. Deepak Chopra, they went along with Gadhafi's request that he not be truthfully identified to the other students in the class.

The Mohammar protégé was on a cross-country trip, part of a corporate-sponsored “internship.” It was at the same time that a revolution was stirring in Libya... a revolt that would lure him home just a few days later to lead an elite military unit accused of slaughtering countless innocent civilians.

Nevertheless, last week when the Northwestern/Kellogg public relations office was provided with questions about young Mr. Gadhafi's stealth campus visit, this was the reply: “Yes, he attended a three-day executive education course as a student. That's really all I can share” stated Meg Washburn, director of media relations.

I wrote back: “Why is that? We are talking about a “student” who supervised the beatings of unarmed civilians, military attacks on residential villages (using internationally banned weapons) and the executions of soldiers who refused to fire on demonstrators…just a few weeks after he was welcomed into a Northwestern classroom.

“Who arranged for him to be there and why did the university allow him to be falsely identified to unsuspecting students?

“Considering the atrocities that U.S. defense officials believe were committed by Khamis Gadhafi, why isn't Northwestern/Kellogg issuing a more definitive statement and someone at the university sitting down to do an interview with us? With all respect, the recent case of a sex demonstration in a Northwestern class received far more substantive responses from university officials.”

In Northwestern's final statement on the matter, Kellogg Business School Dean Sally Blount did not respond to the substantive questions.

Blount said Gadhafi's “visit occurred prior to the uprising in Libya, and before the recent, very troubling allegations against him surfaced” and that Kellogg is committed to respecting human dignity and the integrity of the learning environment, and they promise to review all enrollment procedures and criteria and determine changes that need to be made.

If things continue, one thing that will need to be changed is Northwestern's motto, in Latin on the purple and white crest.

“Quaecumque sunt vera.” It means “Whatsoever things are true.”

What in the world is going on at Northwestern?

You deserve an answer too.

After all, they have some of your money.

Ÿ Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by e-mail at chuckgoudie@gmail.com and followed at twitter.com/ChuckGoudie