The ISU Foundation has known for a long time – but doesn’t say – that its would-be reformers are NOT trying to “out” the individual donors who desire anonymity. What then are the real objections to shining more light on the Foundations operations in an effort to prevent a Powers-farm repeat?

After so many months it is high time for the proponents of less light – the Regents, the ISU management and the Foundation – to explain themselves. As near as I know, everyone else who has seen through the anonymous-donor canard wants more light. Could the ugly rumors that unseemly business is funded in Foundation shadows be right? More light should confirm or dismiss those rumors. Less won’t.

Wednesday’s Daily contained two unhelpful letters. Instead of addressing the serious issues surrounding the Foundation, Beck and Beran erroneously protested that political cartoonist Cerra portrayed women as whores and insulted them. His target was plainly the Foundation, not women (more precisely, in the first part of her first sentence Beck gets this right, but in the second part shifts to saying women are being attacked.)

I hope these two letters (with too many commonalities to have been prepared independently) do not divert us from the real issue – it’s the Foundation!

Caveat Lector: While Beck is chairwoman of the University Committee on Women, and so signed her letter, there was no meeting of that committee at which the letter was endorsed. It seems the letter may be just her opinion, not the committee’s. She also signed herself as “Member, Women’s Leadership Consortium.” I wonder if her letter reports an official opinion of that consortium.

Many people in such a position would not feel free to oppose the administration’s support for less Foundation openness. Some would even make a show of supporting their “boss’s” position. I am told that no high administrator and no regent has backed the lawsuit to shine more light on the Foundation’s activities. Are they ALL yes people?

Bryan Cain

Emeritus Professor

Mathematics