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Scott Coltrane, interim University of Oregon president, emailed colleagues last week saying that released records "contain confidential information about faculty, staff and students, but our current understanding is that no social security numbers, financial information or medical records were shared."
(Jonathan J. Cooper/AP)
The Chronicle of Higher Education on Tuesday identified Bill Harbaugh as the University of Oregon professor who received 22,000 pages documents that the university contends contain confidential information about faculty, staff and students.
In interviews with The Oregonian/Oregonlive, Harbaugh repeatedly has declined to comment about whether he possesses the documents. The university has also declined to identify the professor.
In a memo to colleagues last week, interim President Scott Coltrane said the documents were unlawfully released. Two university archivists were suspended while the university investigates.
The incident has caused a campus uproar, pitting privacy rights and the alleged confidentiality of records against academic freedoms and the public's right to know.
Harbaugh, an economics professor who serves as treasurer of university faculty union, writes the blog UO Matters. He is a frequent critic of the university, particularly concerning open-records matters.
The Chronicle's story on Harbaugh, titled "The Open-Records King of Eugene," identified Harbaugh without attribution. The full article is available only to subscribers.
Over the past four years, Harbaugh formally asked the university for public records 229 times, according to the UO Office of Public Records, the Eugene Register Guard reported Wednesday.
Harbaugh's requests range from financial documents that show how much the university spends on legal and consulting fees to records detailing how much the university spent to send administrators and some spouses to the Rose Bowl game.
He was the recipient of the Oregon Society of Professional Journalists' First Freedom award after his 2009 decision to post online every page of the Oregon attorney general's manual that instructs the public about access to government records — over the attorney general's initial objections. The state was selling the manual in paper form to the public for $25 apiece. But in the wake of Harbaugh's action, the state posted the manual on its website and makes the electronic version available for free.
-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.