Misleading Leaders

For me, the matter of the financial justification that was offered in the original communications, namely that benefits as a percentage of budget had increased from 8% to 12% over 10 years, remains an issue of some import. Reporting by the Crimson showed the misleading nature of that statistic quite clearly and subsequent institutional communications have stayed away from it.  We now hear more about the desire to keep in line with the benefit plans of peer institutions and area employers and about mitigating potential expense increases in the future. The letter from the President offers some new precisely worded and seemingly odd financial data that is intended to dispense with the financial justification once and for all.  Maybe yes, but likely no.

The issue of the original financial justification remains.  Citing the 8%-12% increase was not accidental and those doing so had to have been aware of it's fundamentally misleading nature.  And what justification could one possibly offer for willfully misleading everyone who received the communication.  A single instance of this could possibly be attributed to clumsiness or bad judgement but when it is viewed in connection with similar attempts to mislead the community about the life insurance/W-2 mess it becomes something more.  Had those unfortunate comments not been called out by the Law School faculty we likely never would have known about them.

And perhaps most strangely of all; no one is held to account.