Top-level administrators and two Ohio University trustees strongly resisted handing over public records from an ethics tip line to the Post last year, according to internal e-mails.

Filed in July 2007, the records request prompted a flurry of discussion in the administration that persisted even after the records were released that August as officials consulted the Ohio Attorney General on ways to protect the hotline’s reports in the future.

OU pulled the plug on EthicsPoint — a Web-based tool and telephone service that allows individuals to report suspected fraud, waste or abuse — in August 2007, one day after turning over records from the system to the Post.

In delaying the record’s release, OU argued that the Post’s request was too broad and that disclosing the information could lead to retaliation against whistleblowers or a libel suit from individuals found to be the subject of a baseless claim.

C. Daniel DeLawder, chairman of the board of trustees, stood firmly against releasing the information and urged President McDavis to “fight this one out, if necessary.” After OU released the information — but before DeLawder was aware — he told Kathryn Gilmore Chambers, director of internal audit, to delay the release until he had spoken with McDavis.

Trustee C. Robert Kidder recommended eliminating the system in an Aug. 23 e-mail after finding out that OU released the records earlier that day.

“I believe we should have litigated rather than capitulate (of course, I am not a lawyer),” Kidder said. “Given the fact that we capitulated, we should terminate the EthicsPoint system. In my opinion, it is now a waste of money or worse.”

Two months after shutting it down, OU reactivated EthicsPoint in a telephone-only capacity to reduce the appearance of personal attacks in the system’s reports.

In September 2007, the Post widened the initial records request to include all complaint-related documents filed to the office of internal audit in the past three years.

“It took us two weeks to put all that information together when our job is accountability, and at that point we’re not doing that,” Gilmore said in a recent interview.

DeLawder sounded off against the expanded records request in an e-mail to Gilmore.

“This is a very sore subject for me, and perhaps it’s time we began pushing back,” DeLawder said. “And I am quite serious; I am even unsure that we should provide the next document without a fight. It sickens me to think of the waste and unproductive time being spent in the name of open records and freedom of the press.”

In an e-mail to DeLawder the day OU announced it would suspend EthicsPoint, then-Executive Director of University Communication and Marketing Joe Brennan said a “political solution is necessary” to exempt the tip line from records requests. He suggested speaking with OU’s director of government relations to devise strategies and identify allies to “work to get the law changed.”

To discuss advancing OU’s legal rationale for protecting EthicsPoint, Brennan prepared to meet with the attorney general’s office in mid September. He outlined OU’s position in a Sept. 18 memo titled “Talking Points,” which Gilmore agreed with but wanted to supplement.

Gilmore said that both records requests from the Post were too broad and suggested requiring greater clarity in requests, which could open up the records for inspection and require the individual to travel to the various offices across campus holding the information.

“While there surely is a downside to requiring requesters to inspect the records and ask for pertinent copies, what we are doing now is not working!” Gilmore said.

After meeting with the attorney general’s office and finding that OU would not be able to exempt the tip line from future records requests, Gilmore said her next step was to reduce the occurrence of character attacks by eliminating the online complaint form and directing people to the hotline.

“We found that people will type things that they won’t say,” Gilmore said.