2008 Woodie Awards
University makes mockery of Lee Jones audit
Royal Purple staff
Issue date: 11/20/07 Section: Opinion
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In an embarrassing turn of events for the university, UW-Whitewater secretly made a settlement with former Dean of Graduate Studies and Continuing Education Lee Jones to end the two-year battle over Jones' alleged misuse of university funds and his subsequent discrimination lawsuit.
A 2005 audit of the School of Graduate Studies and Continuing education stated that Jones had misspent $54,239 to support Brothers of the Academy, an African-American academic group he founded in 1999, with most of the money going toward the 2005 BOTA leadership symposium in Madison.
The university claimed the amount of financial support it agreed to for the group was $4,000, and they transferred the amount for those purposes.
This wasn't the first time Jones had allegedly misused university funds. He was in a similar situation while employed as an administrator at Florida State University. Officials at UW-Whitewater didn't know about the investigation that was going on at Florida State when they hired him to be a dean at UW-Whitewater.
Despite having probable cause against him, Jones countered the university's allegations by filing a racial discrimination complaint against the university. In a Dec. 14, 2005, article in the Royal Purple, Jones said he and Howard Ross of the College of Letters and Sciences, who is also an African-American, "are the only deans on the UW-Whitewater campus to be subjected to an audit of their performance and activities."
Instead of citing racial motivations for the investigation, doesn't it make sense that the university suspected misspending? They get the bills for everything, so is it so audacious a statement to say that they simply wanted to investigate further? It's very possible. And look what they found: more than $50,000 of questionable purchases.
Saying the audit was based purely on race appears to be just a convenient argument, and contrary to the audit findings.
The university wasn't even asking for the full $54,239 cited in the audit. They sought at least $10,000 because they believed that was the amount he spent on things for himself. But both parties settled behind closed doors, and now the lines between wrong and right have been muddled. But all the blame doesn't rest on Jones.
A 2005 audit of the School of Graduate Studies and Continuing education stated that Jones had misspent $54,239 to support Brothers of the Academy, an African-American academic group he founded in 1999, with most of the money going toward the 2005 BOTA leadership symposium in Madison.
The university claimed the amount of financial support it agreed to for the group was $4,000, and they transferred the amount for those purposes.
This wasn't the first time Jones had allegedly misused university funds. He was in a similar situation while employed as an administrator at Florida State University. Officials at UW-Whitewater didn't know about the investigation that was going on at Florida State when they hired him to be a dean at UW-Whitewater.
Despite having probable cause against him, Jones countered the university's allegations by filing a racial discrimination complaint against the university. In a Dec. 14, 2005, article in the Royal Purple, Jones said he and Howard Ross of the College of Letters and Sciences, who is also an African-American, "are the only deans on the UW-Whitewater campus to be subjected to an audit of their performance and activities."
Instead of citing racial motivations for the investigation, doesn't it make sense that the university suspected misspending? They get the bills for everything, so is it so audacious a statement to say that they simply wanted to investigate further? It's very possible. And look what they found: more than $50,000 of questionable purchases.
Saying the audit was based purely on race appears to be just a convenient argument, and contrary to the audit findings.
The university wasn't even asking for the full $54,239 cited in the audit. They sought at least $10,000 because they believed that was the amount he spent on things for himself. But both parties settled behind closed doors, and now the lines between wrong and right have been muddled. But all the blame doesn't rest on Jones.
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