Secret payments are contradictions of open, accountable, and democratic government. They are the essence of government corruption.
Yet last year the General Assembly and Gov. Ned Lamont authorized such secrecy. Why? Because it was sought by the University of Connecticut, which is often considered the fourth branch of state government and entitled to whatever it wants.
UConn’s rationale for secret payments was ridiculous.
At issue are the de-facto salaries that UConn, like many other schools, has begun paying its varsity student-athletes amid the professionalization of college sports. That professionalization may be fair, but it is destroying respect for the college game. The secrecy claimed by UConn will corrupt it.
At UConn’s request the legislature and governor enacted an exemption to Connecticut’s freedom-of-information law for the payments made by the university to varsity student-athletes as part of sports revenue sharing and for use of their “name, image, and likeness” in advertising. The university says it will disclose the total of these payments and the number of student-athletes receiving them but not individual payments.
“This exemption,” UConn Athletic Director David Benedict told the legislature, “will allow student-athletes to maintain their privacy, increase compensation opportunities, and avoid the competitive disadvantages that would occur if Connecticut universities were required to share contract details.”
Privacy? How can there be privacy for student-athletes who play before huge crowds, often on television, become the subjects of news reports about their performance, and are followed and admired by millions?
How can there be privacy for student-athletes who hope to parlay their publicity into even more lucrative opportunities in commercial endorsements and the big leagues?
Actual privacy would kill college sports and student-athlete careers.
As for “competitive disadvantages” to UConn if its payments to student-athletes are disclosed, the same argument could be made in respect to all other government employees in Connecticut, whose salaries, thankfully, have not yet been concealed in the name of “privacy.” Everyone in government might like his salary to be secret. The government itself might like it too, since concealing salaries and other payments would prevent ordinary accountability.
For example, UConn might not want the public to know how its payments to men and women student-athletes compare, nor how payments among members of the same team compare, lest the public sense bad judgment, unfairness, or nepotism and demand answers.
UConn doesn’t want to conceal its payments to student-athletes for their sake but for its own.
The university’s new exemption from FOI law will facilitate unfairness, unaccountability, and corruption and be a disastrous precedent. The legislature and the governor should repeal it. Corrupt will be corrupt no matter how many games UConn teams win.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years.