It was just last year when 137,000 Social Security numbers and 60,000 medical records were hacked on Ohio University servers. Now, 34 pages of the 134-page report detailing how OU's information technology department could improve have been completely blocked from public scrutiny, and 62 more are partially blocked. Hiding behind the mask of trade secrets
OU administrators are refusing to release a completely un-redacted report that includes essential details about how IT at OU compares to IT at other schools.
OU owes answers to the students, employees and alumni about how and why their information was hacked. This report doesn't address those questions specifically, but it does provide a much-needed analysis of OU's IT department. Though officials claim Gartner Consulting, the firm that prepared the report, redacted it, OU administrators are ultimately responsible for this attempt to stifle what should be public information. Gartner was commissioned by OU to write the report; OU should be able to do what it wants with the information in that report, and that information should be made public.
What makes this situation even more suspicious is some of the people that have access to the complete report. Among eight-plus people is Joe Brennan, the executive director of Communications and Marketing. That Brennan, President McDavis' unofficial image man, has seen the IT report suggests it contains information the public needs to know, or it contains information that could be damaging to the university's already shattered reputation.
Simply put, the university is hiding behind a technicality. It is clear officials are trying to hide their own incompetence in order to avoid another scandal. But they need to remember secrets breed mistrust. People will never feel that their information is safe on OU servers until they are given some answers about where things went wrong in the IT department. It's time to end the cycle of incompetence ' and unnecessary secrecy ' and release this report to the public. Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Post executive editors. 17
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Ohio University students, employees, faculty deserve to see IT report's findings in its entirety
