Mike Ilitch
Mike Ilitch
Why all the secrecy?
Steve Neavling of Motor City Muckraker reports that Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson has signed off on a $35 million gift agreement with billionaire Mike Ilitch to build a new business school without getting the required approval from the school’s elected Board of Governors. The school is chipping in $24 million for the project.
Neavling writes:
The Mike Ilitch School of Business agreement, which has numerous strings attached that could be perilous to students and taxpayers, was intended to be confidential until Motor City Muckraker received a copy under the Freedom of Information Act. Public universities are subject to open-record laws.
Turns out, top university officials appeared to have signed off on the agreement without board approval, as required by the university’s own gift giving policy. There is nothing in the university’s public records that shows the board voted for the gift. That’s worrisome because the Board of Governors is an elected body with a fiduciary responsibility to students and taxpayers.
Last October, the board amidst fanfare voted for the construction and naming rights for the Mike Ilitch School of Business, but not the gift agreement, which puts the financial obligation on the university.
Neavling reports that a confidentiality clause in the agreement between Ilitch and the school prohibits Wayne State University from disclosing details to the public, and that includes the university’s “directors, officers, staff or employees who do not have a reason to know the information.”