Bensel-Meyers responds

Tennessee English professor Linda Bensel-Meyers responded to Gilley's comments in an e-mail interview with ESPN.com's Tom Farrey: "I am sorry that President Gilley has not sought to contact me directly on this matter. I have never been asked to give the names of these students or the original transcripts, since it is obvious that, as the Chief Academic Officer, Provost Peters would have access to these himself. In fact, both President Gilley and Provost Peters have emphasized that I cannot reveal to them information that identifies particular students. "This is the excuse Provost Peters had used throughout the investigation to not look at my evidence. Similarly, President Gilley sent an e-mail to a member of my staff March 8 insinuating that lawsuits would follow should student names be revealed, a threat reiterated in his April 28 letter to the faculty when he said: 'I must add that this matter has aroused the university's concern about possible violation of students' privacy rights under federal law. We should all put student interests and rights at the top of our agenda.' "I compiled the transcripts into anonymous form so that I could send the information to the Provost and gave them to him immediately after I completed the compilation. When I received no response, I asked the Senate Executive Committee to forward, along with my report, some of the sample anonymous records. However, Provost Peters advised the committee that the records would violate student privacy, and they withheld the records. "Clearly, Provost Peters felt the names of the students (already) were identifiable in the records I sent to him, and he has never asked me for the names or for the original transcripts. In fact, he has, since that meeting, written me to say he found no violations in my report, evidence that he not only received the anonymous records but reviewed them as credible representations of the transcripts."

ESPN's Bob Ley interviewed University of Tennessee President J. Wade Gilley for the May 7 Outside The Lines program. The following is an excerpted transcript from that interview.

Ley: Let me ask you about Urban Studies. You've got 25,000 students there in Knoxville. Only 30 students out of 25,000 are majoring in Urban Studies. Nine of those 30 (students) were starters on last year's football team.

Gilley: I don't know that's true. I don't know where you would, how you would conclude that.

Ley: It's the data from professor Bensel-Meyers' report.

Gilley: Well, see we don't know that those are actually transcripts from those students. She's refused to give the names, so I have no idea whether those are accurate transcripts or not because she hasn't revealed the names of the persons to the university, and she's been asked to do that. So we have no idea -- those could be anybody's transcripts, as far as I know.

Ley: Would you be worried if those numbers were accurate? ... Would that suggest that football players are being guided in to that particular major?

Gilley: We have 130 football players. If nine are Urban Studies majors, I don't know that that's unusual. But I do think that we ought to leave that to the faculty senate to review and make recommendations on.

Ley: Do you doubt this data? Do you doubt the validity of her information?

Gilley: I have no idea. She has not been willing to give us the information so that we can verify (it). ... Our Provost, Dr. John Peters, who is the new President at Northern Illinios University as of June the first, has asked her repeatedly for this information so that he could validate it, and she refused to give it to him.