Medill Prof. David Protess called for an independent review of himself and the Medill Innocence Project on Wednesday, alleging that Northwestern’s own review was “completely lacking in transparency” and suffered from “tunnel vision.”
Protess, the founder of the Innocence Project, is on leave from Medill and the project after being replaced as the professor of his Investigative Journalism course for the spring. He used his Wednesday statement to imply that University officials may have replaced him due to conflicts of interest or personal reasons.
Specifically, Protess said the independent review should look into whether Medill Dean John Lavine acted “in retaliation” for Protess’s role in a 2008 scandal involving Lavine’s use of quotes in a Medill alumni magazine article.
“I want to be clear, I’m not accusing the dean of anything here,” Protess said in an interview. “I’m saying, ‘Let’s have an independent, impartial review that looks at the problems that have occurred in the past few years.'”
Protess, a 29-year professor, took a public role in the “Quotegate” scandal regarding two quotes that Lavine attributed to students in an article about a Medill advertising class. Prompted by a column in The Daily, Protess contacted the students in the class and determined that none of them said the quotes that Lavine attributed to them.
Lavine was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing by a committee established by the provost’s office, but Protess publicly maintained Lavine was at fault.
Reached on his cell phone Wednesday night, Lavine declined to comment because he had not seen Protess’s statement. University spokesman Al Cubbage also declined to comment.
In addition to the implication about Lavine, Protess’s statement called for an examination of whether University Provost Dan Linzer, General Counsel Tom Cline and others were influenced by conflicts of interests related to their relationship with NU’s law school.
“(The public has) a right to know about conflicts and wrongdoing on the part of those who are making the decisions in this case,” Protess said.
Protess also said NU’s review has “remained secret,” although some results were presented at a Medill faculty meeting last week and later released to the media.
That review “uncovered considerable evidence” that Protess lied to University officials and doctored emails, according to an NU statement. Protess allegedly lied to avoid turning over documents to prosecutors who had accused him and his students of crossing ethical boundaries in investigating the murder conviction of Anthony McKinney.
“In sum, Protess knowingly misrepresented the facts and his actions to the University, its attorneys and the dean of Medill on many documented occasions,” according to the statement.
Protess responded last week by calling the statement “blatantly false” and “malicious.” He argued that any misleading statements he made were due to memory issues related with trying to remember emails sent five years earlier.
On Wednesday, Protess added that it’s “ridiculous … to say that after six months of investigation, that Al Cubbage’s two- or three-page release captured the truth.”
The independent review should be organized by the NU Faculty Senate, Protess said. It would ideally include NU faculty, students and alumni, at least one director of a journalism innocence project and one director of a professional journalism organization.
“I am calling for an open and transparent and accountable review,” Protess said. “I want the truth to come out.”
