The Board of Regents approved a significant tuition hike yesterday in response to expected reductions in state funding for the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. B.A. Morelli reported for the Iowa City Press-Citizen,

In-state students at UI, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa will see a 5 percent increase. But there are additional mandatory fees, and out-of-state students and students in specialized programs, such as business, engineering and nursing, will have increases up to 41.4 percent.

Details and background information are after the jump.

The Board of Regents on Thursday voted not to give a raise to University of Iowa president Sally Mason after her first year on the job because of problems related to a sexual assault investigation last year. She still has a chance to earn large performance bonuses if she meets unspecified targets in the future, though.

Mason fired the dean of students and the university’s lead attorney last week for their handling of the sexual assault case. On Friday she implemented new policies regarding how staff are to deal with reported sexual assaults.

Attorney Marc Mills continues to insist that he was fired without cause and was not leading the university’s investigation into last year’s assault. I don’t know enough of the facts to make a judgment about whether he or Philip Jones deserved to be fired. I do agree with the Iowa City Press-Citizen that the Regents should not have held Mason’s performance review in closed session.

Also on Thursday, the Regents ordered state universities to follow U.S. code regarding display of the flag. Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa already do that, but the University of Iowa has sometimes lowered the flag as a sign of respect when longtime staff or faculty die. Most recently the flag was flown at half-staff after political science professor Arthur Miller took his own life, which drew criticism because of the criminal investigation surrounding Miller.

I know we have plenty of U of I graduates in the Bleeding Heartland community. How do you feel about all this?

Two months after the Board of Regents ordered an external investigation of how the University of Iowa handled a sexual assault case last year, two senior university officials got the ax:

University of Iowa President Sally Mason today fired Phillip Jones, 67, vice president for student services, and Marcus Mills, 52, vice president for legal affairs and general counsel.

Mason’s actions came after the Stolar Partnership last week released a report to the Iowa Board of Regents that heavily criticized Mills’ and Jones’ actions after the alleged sexual assault at Hillcrest Residence Hall on Oct. 14, 2007. The review by the St. Louis law firm found “numerous and substantial flaws” in not only the U of I’s response to the assault, but also in its policies, procedures and practices.

According to the Des Moines Register, Mason fired Jones and Mills after they refused to resign, and neither will receive severance pay.

It’s likely to be a career-ending action for Jones, who had worked at the University of Iowa for 40 years. I don’t know him personally, but I have heard good things about him from faculty and former students in Iowa City. Jones refused to comment when contacted by the Register.

Mills spoke out, though:

Mills said Tuesday night he believed he was unfairly singled out in today’s dismissal and in the Stolar report.

“I believe I handled the matter to the best of my ability under the circumstances,” Mills said in a phone interview.

He said he disagreed with the Stolar report’s assessment of his actions. He said he did not have a conflict of interest in acting as U of I general counsel and liaison with the alleged victim’s family.

Mills said investigators did not allow him to give his version of six phone conversations he had with the alleged victim’s father. Mills also disagreed with the law firm’s assessment that he should have asked a judge to permit the U of I to release documents pertaining to the report, he said tonight.

“I’m disappointed that the president and the regents didn’t have an opportunity to get a fuller view,” Mills said.

What do you think? Did Jones and Mills deserve to lose their jobs, or were they scapegoated? Should anyone else be sacked over the way the university dealt with this case?

The Board of Regents delayed Mason’s first performance review until after investigators finished their report. I doubt they will fire her, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets no raise, or a smaller raise than the Iowa State and University of Northern Iowa presidents.

I have to believe that a few people at the University of Iowa will lose their jobs when the St. Louis law firm hired to examine the university’s handling of an alleged sexual assault turns in its report:

The Iowa Board of Regents hired the firm Monday to assure Iowans of an independent investigation after it was revealed the U of I failed to turn over key documents in a previous probe conducted by the regents.

[…]

Two former U of I football players have been charged with sexually assaulting a former female student-athlete in an unoccupied room in Hillcrest Residence Hall. Abe Satterfield and Cedric Everson, both 19, have pleaded not guilty of second-degree sex abuse. Satterfield has also pleaded not guilty of third-degree sex abuse. Both are scheduled for trial Nov. 3 in Johnson County.

[…]

The jumping-off point for the investigation will be two letters written by the alleged victim’s mother that criticized the U of I’s handling of the complaint, Mersman said. The mother alleges that the athletic department tried to keep the report in-house and that university officials did not support the alleged victim.

The revelation this month that the U of I did not disclose these letters during a previous regents investigation of the incident led to the new probe.

[…]

U of I President Sally Mason apologized and said the letters weren’t turned over because of an incorrect interpretation of a federal student privacy law. The firm will also review how state and federal laws may have played into the handling of the case, Mersman said.

The University’s president, Sally Mason, doesn’t need any extra headaches this summer, when flooding caused unprecedented devastation on campus. At least 20 major buildings connected to the university were damaged.

But if alleged crimes committed by athletes are not thoroughly investigated and prosecuted, there will be long-term damage to the university’s reputation.

Rekha Basu’s recent column about this incident goes over some of the more outrageous facts already known about this case, such as:

The mother wrote that her daughter reported the rape allegation within three days to university officials, but they told her she’d get quicker action if she didn’t make a formal complaint.

Not only did that not happen, but she was harassed, followed, and taunted every day by athletes, including the two accused men, Cedric Everson and Abe Satterfield, according to her mother. She even found Everson living three doors down the hall from her. The federal Jeanne Clery Act requires universities to have policies to warn the whole campus about accused rapists.

No one seemed to be leading the probe and no advocate was assigned to her daughter, the mother wrote, leading her daughter to go to police three weeks after the incident. Only after that was evidence collected from dorm rooms.

State Senator Matt McCoy is furious:

It’s baffling that Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness is quick to dismiss the possibility of obstruction-of-justice charges against university officials. As McCoy puts it, “She’s ignoring the fact that there may be criminal liability for covering this up.”

McCoy will meet with his caucus Tuesday, and hopes to send a strong message to Mason and the regents that legislators are not happy. He says they have a role as funders of state universities, who also confirm regents.

The unspoken piece of this is the exalted status the university gives its athletes. “It all comes down to money,” says McCoy. “… A lot of their reputation as a university is built around them.”

On a related note, Marc Hansen raises important questions about the role of alcohol in crimes committed on the U of I campus:

The university police department filed 535 charges against students in 2007. Four hundred sixty-seven — 87 percent — were alcohol- or drug-related.

Let’s break it down: 236 were for public intoxication, 86 were liquor-law violations, 38 were for drunken driving.

When you’re talking about alcohol-related “incidents” on campus, the number topped 1,000 for the fifth year in a row in 2007. While that might not seem like an epidemic at a school with 30,000 students, these are the incidents we know about.

If you look at the 18 football players arrested since April 2007, nine of the 23 charges were directly related to alcohol. How many others were indirectly related?

How many across campus? How many disorderly conducts? How many interferences with official acts, assaults, thefts?

Going by campus police interviews, it now looks as if alcohol played a part in the high-profile alleged sexual assault of a female student last fall.

Alcohol can be involved in sexual assault in many ways, according to a report published by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 2001.

While underage drinking and sexual assault take place on every college campus, the University of Iowa should be taking steps to reduce binge drinking and obviously cannot condone any special treatment for athletes accused of committing crimes.