The firing of Rutgers’ basketball coach Mike Rice for his verbal and physical abuse of the players has overshadowed the university’s prior offense of firing the whistle blower Eric Murdock, who made the incriminating video of the abuse last summer.  It is questionable what is more egregious: the bullying of college athletes or the vindictive firing of the director of player personnel, without whom the abuse might have gone unchecked.

Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances that merited the firing of Murdock, but it usually turns out that whistle blowers have a tenacious and  independent streak that make them less than model employees.  Regardless of Mr. Murdock’s personnel record, the fact that his firing assisted the cover-up of Rice’s abuse of student athletes shows the depravity of college administrators when large sums of money are at stake.

The large sums of money would have resulted from Rutgers being invited to join the Big Ten, the nation’s most prestigious athletic conference. Murdock’s sacrifice on the altar of academic greed exposes a contempt for ethics and casts a dark shadow on public university administration.

The public university deserves the reputation of bringing first generation college students into the middle and upper-middle class through affordable tuition, financial aid, and flexible academic policies.  Arguably it is one of the most potent democratizing forces in the United States, and it has struggled in this millenium from depletion of state support.  It has done more with less better than many well-toned corporations.

But the pressure to compete with its peers and the temptation of the media gravy train may compromise the mission of the public university.  In Rutger’s case the seeds of corruption were already sown with the hiring of Tim Pernetti, a former TV executive with no athletic credentials, as the athletic administrator. In retrospect this looks like enlisting the fox to guard the chicken coop.

Clearly this fox did not have the psychological health of undergraduates among his priorities. Pernetti’s decision to keep the video from the university president or any public exposure and to fire the video-maker, Eric Murdock, shows his contempt for student athletes.  The ultimate firing of Coach Rice after the video went viral proves that the cover-up through the firing of Murdock was the only reason the coach was allowed to keep his job.

Greed in public education is reprehensible, but more appalling is the stifling of conscience.  We can understand the economic pressures that compromise the mission of the public university, but to deliberately suppress an ethical stand against such abuse shows a callous cynicism  that has no place in any university, public or otherwise.

The roles of the athletic director and the university president in the firing of Eric Murdock should be carefully scrutinized to determine what was intentionally stifled– the bad publicity or the voice of conscience.  It is too late to salvage reputation, but the right to speak against abuse on a college campus can still be defended.