Mikva blames U of I for Madigan's influence
URBANA -- The former lawmaker and judge who ran Gov. Pat Quinn's commission on admissions irregularities says the bulk of the blame lies with University of Illinois leaders -- even if House Speaker Mike Madigan used his political weight to get applicants into the school.
But Abner Mikva also said the state might want to create a new commission to look into reports that Madigan interfered in university admissions.
While saying that public officials including Madigan shouldn't pressure institutions such as the University of Illinois, "I still don't think that is the center of the problem," Mikva told The (Champaign) News-Gazette. "There will always be pressure from various groups in and out of government. The question is how is that pressure responded to."
The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday that Madigan helped relatives of public officials, political donors and others gain admission. Some of the applicants had substandard grades.
Madigan has denied doing anything more than being responsive to constituents and others who asked the powerful Chicago Democrat for help.
This week's news followed months of reports last year on the role political influence plays on University of Illinois admissions.
Quinn created the Illinois Admissions Review Commission in response and appointed Mikva, a former federal judge and U.S. representative from Chicago, to chair it.
The commission spent weeks reviewing the role of political influence on admissions at the University of Illinois. Its report led to the resignation of most of the university's board of trustees, as well as President B. Joseph White and Urbana-Champaign campus Chancellor Richard Herman.
Neither Madigan nor state Senate President John Cullerton testified before the commission, despite being asked to do so.
A University of Chicago professor who has criticized the commission for not closely scrutinizing the role of lawmakers in the admissions scandal said this week that it's no surprise that university leaders have trouble saying no to legislators who control how much state money the schools get.
"What did anyone really think state university officials were going to do when pressured by one of the most powerful politicians in the state? Tell him to 'get lost'?" said Brian Leiter, the John P. Wilson Professor of Law and director of the Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values at the University of Chicago.
"That Mikva Commission didn't uncover or even bother to really investigate the misconduct by politicians like Madigan is itself a scandal," Leiter told The News-Gazette.
The Mikva commission asked both Madigan and state Senate President John Cullerton to testify last summer, along with other legislators, but neither appeared before the panel.