Large universities, like other organizations, involve large amounts of money. Large amounts of money attract people who, well, like money. And that often leads to Conflicts of Interest (CoI’s). This series highlights some remarkable examples of CoI’s at a large public university.
What’s a Conflict of Interest, and why do we care?
It’s good to define terms. A CoI is a situation in which a party has multiple interests, and so one cannot tell whether a decision is motivated by a desired interest (e.g. education and research) or another interest (e.g. personal or professional advancement). So, if an influential party were to vote in favor of a motion, and could benefit from that vote (e.g. if their superiors might prefer a yay, and disapprove of a nay) then we in the university community would not be able to tell whether these considerations influenced the vote.
To establish a CoI, there is no need to demonstrate a quid pro quo, or corruption, or conspiracy. In this series we’ll identify situations in which serving in multiple roles could reasonably cast doubt on whether a vote in one role (e.g. member of a governing board) has been influenced by another role (e.g. external employment).
Although CoI’s need not involve corruption, they are a prerequisite, and often accompany, serious corruption scandals. A compilation of examples in higher education appears in the New Jersey State Commission on Investigation report tellingly named, “Vulnerable to Abuse” , which documents hiring and kickback practices, tens of millions of dollars of fraudulent overbilling, and years of resulting federal monitoring at a large state university. University athletics also involve large amounts of money, and have similarly been reported to be accompanied by misleading accounting and debt concealment practices that are common in CoI’s.
First case example: electing unnamed candidate to Board
Conflicts of Interest thrive in the dark. A case in point arose on April 14, 2021, when the Board of Governors (BoG) of a major public university voted to install a member to a local campus Board of Directors (BoD). This vote took place in public as required by law, however the BoG refused during their public meeting to NAME the candidate whom they were electing. The Board maintained their refusal to name the candidate even when asked specifically for this information at the meeting by a journalist. The written minutes describing this exchange say only:
“[the chair of the Board] called on a member of the public that signed up to speak on action items contained on the agenda. The speaker spoke about the nomination of a member to the Camden Board of Directors contained on the consent agenda.”
Secret decisions are often secret for a reason, and indeed it was subsequently revealed that the the newly elected member of the BoD also:
is a paid representative of a major developer in Camden NJ who has extensive financial and real estate interests in the waterfront area shared with Rutgers, Camden campus
represented the City of Camden in legal actions concerning property adjacent to Rutgers, Camden
was a member of the BoG that voted him to be a BoD member
was present and did not recuse himself from his appointment vote, despite the “NJ Recusal Rule” that forbids voting and participation in matters that involve
“financial interest, direct or indirect, that … includes … outside employment [or] any matter pertaining to or involving a business associate [that] might reasonably be expected to create an impression or suspicion [of] conduct violative of his or her trust as a State official.”
incidentally has since been accused of serving in violation of residency requirements.
UPDATE, June 27, 2024: a NJ Superior Court Judge has ruled to remove this (and one other) member from the Rutgers Board of Governors (see media report and trial recording). This member has also been indicted in a 13 count grand jury racketeering, corruption and extortion case.
It is difficult to construct a scenario in which a candidate’s name for an influential public position should be secret. It is also troublesome that this secrecy was itself secret - i.e. the secrecy was the subject of several minutes’ discussion at the April 2021 BoG meeting that were excluded from the meeting minutes. In this case the candidate had multiple apparent conflicts, and should in any case have been recused from consideration, discussion, and vote on his own nomination and election.
Without open public information one can only speculate, the leading speculation being that there was an underlying motivation for refusing to name the candidate. Since the candidate has both represented the City of Camden and is personal attorney to a well-known Camden developer, this speculation leads to disturbing questions.
Next up in the series: Required conflict of interest disclosures aren't filed, or are filed but we don't have them, or we do have them but can't say where, or ... Answers you get depend on which vice president you ask.