UCF Student Body President Michael Kilbride suffered two major losses last week in his fight to restrict access to his Knightmare financial database showing how millions in student money is spent.
In August, Kilbride had shut out almost the entire senate from seeing his Knightmare database directly, just hours after KnightNews.com broke a story exposing how Kilbride spent nearly $8,000 in student money on a lavish retreat he hosted for his cabinet at a luxury five-star resort outside Disney. Sources say Kilbride took this action to prevent information about how he spent student money from going public in campus media.
At the time, SGA Sen. Fernando Gonzales immediately called for Kilbride’s actions to order A&SF staff to shut out the senate from direct access to Knightmare be reversed. When Kilbride refused, Gonzales called Kilbride’s decision to restrict the Senate a “breach of power” and sought an opinion from then-SGA Attorney General Nicholas Gurney to determine if that was the case.
Earlier this year, Gurney issued an opinion declaring that Knightmare should be restored to how it was prior to Kilbride’s retreat scandal going public — the level when the Knightmare database provided equal access between branches.
For weeks, Kilbride defied the opinion, and dragged his feet on explaining why. Kilbride’s PR staff suggested a federal privacy law known as FERPA — which universities are routinely accused of abusing and misinterpreting to hide how public money is spent — was a reason why Kilbride didn’t immediately comply with the opinion. Finally, the SGA Senate had enough.
The week before Spring Break, the SGA Senate passed a resolution on second reading demanding the full access to Kilbride’s Knightmare database it previously enjoyed before the retreat controversy. Part of the resolution called for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to intervene by issuing her own opinion. Only after taking that drastic action did UCF administrators step in and restore Senate’s access to Knightmare.
The only apparent difference in access is that senators have to sign a some sort of confidentiality agreement not to disclose the information. The Senate was provided no legal justification why prior to this year such an agreement was never required.
The other loss Kilbride’s SGA suffered was its ability to prevent KnightNews.com from seeing Knightmare in electronic format with few redactions. At first, UCF released to KnightNews.com a scanned, printed copy Knightmare with nearly every single student name redacted, or blacked out and refused to give KnightNews.com the full legal explanation justifying that action, which lawyers say KnightNews.com is entitled to receive under Public Record Law.
After weeks of demanding that explanation, KnightNews.com finally on Friday was given a detailed explanation for why UCF was withholding certain portions of the records, along with an electronic copy of Knightmare with much fewer names redacted. KnightNews.com will post these new records shortly.
Kilbride’s name does not show up on any of the Knightmare records, presumably because Kilbride has told UCF he doesn’t want his information released, and UCF intereprets FERPA in a way to allow this — even though Kilbride is a member of the UCF Board of Trustees.
KnightNews.com is working to find out if both Nick Gurney’s and Matt McCann’s campaigns would promise not to do this if they’re elected. Check back for an update on this issue and to see where both camps stand.
