At least he's telling the truth about the first 28 years.

December 2002

The Norman Transcript (December 19, 2002) reported that Oklahoma legislators were to face a budget shortfall of $592 million when they convened at the Capitol in January 2003. In the fall the State Regents for Higher Education announced a 6% cut in appropriations to universities. OU's politician president David Boren, faced with the consequences of his own deplorable financial mismanagement, became desperate to convince legislators to allow him to raise tuition at will and began to pull every trick in the book, including lies, in pursuit of this end (Boren photo at right).

Readers need some historical context to understand this man's bizarre behavior. First, David Boren has always been the political pawn of Oklahoma's ruthless Gaylord dynasty. The Gaylords, who treat Oklahoma as a fiefdom, own The Daily Oklahoman, described by the Columbia Journalism Review as the worst newspaper in America. The same article, on page 2, reports that as a U.S. Senator in 1986 Boren "sponsored 'a one-of-a-kind, multimillion-dollar' tax break that would benefit only eight wealthy investors -- one of whom was publisher Ed Gaylord."

Christy Gaylord Everest, granddaughter of the late E.K. Gaylord, now sits on the OU Board of Regents and has recently been named as president of the multi-million dollar Oklahoma Publishing Company, which owns the Oklahoman.

OU English Professor Salutes Gaylord Fiefdom

An example of how tight a grip the power of the Gaylord dynasty has on the minds of Oklahomans is given by a letter published in the Oklahoma Daily, the OU newspaper, by English professor Catherine Hobbs, who expresses her humble gratitude to the Gaylords for their gift to the journalism school. She concludes with the paradoxical statement that the "progress" of Oklahoma's economy and democracy depends, in large measure, on one person: Christy Gaylord Everest.

Crippling the Oklahoma Legislature and Empowering the Fiefdom

In 1992 Christy's father Edward was one of the most prominent orchestrators who successfully manipulated voters into passing State Question 640, an extraordinary measure which prohibits the legislature from enacting any new taxes or tax increases without a 3/4 majority. The amendment cripples representative government by undermining one of its fundamental responsibilities: to raise revenue.

Naming Campus Buildings and Monuments for the Gaylords

Because of 640, Oklahoma legislators are unable to respond effectively to the budget crisis and state agencies and educational facilities are in deep trouble. Boren's patrons in the Gaylord family are to blame. He has rewarded them for their oppressive arrogance and irresponsibility by building monuments around the campus with the Gaylord name attached to them. Showing respect for the earlier tax favor, the Gaylords tossed some pocket change Boren's way for the construction of a new OU journalism building. Boren reciprocated by attaching the Gaylord name to the school.

His head swimming with dreams of eternal football glory after head coach Bob Stoops returned the OU team to national prominence with its 2000 championship, Boren approved a gargantuan project to expand the football stadium at a cost of $75 million. The Gaylords donated $12 million to embellish the expanded stadium with a new front facade. In return, Boren trampled on the memories of Oklahoma soldiers who died in World War I by renaming the stadium for the Gaylord family. By not providing proper public notification about the agenda of the Regents' meeting where this atrocity was accomplished, he violated the state's Open Meetings Law along the way. Originally dedicated in 1925, the Oklahoma Memorial Stadium was named to honor those who made the supreme sacrifice.

With wife Molly's guidance, Boren also squandered money on a new park with a large ugly fountain and clock tower at the Oklahoma City health sciences campus. He destroyed the eastern half of the main boulevard which had earlier served the campus and its health care facilities for this extravaganza. The main effect of the clock tower, also named for the Gaylords, is to disrupt the work of librarians and serious students in need of quiet study by disturbing the peace with its semi-hourly chime.

Boren's Desire to Be President of the USA

Since resigning his Senate seat in 1994 and using his political clout to have himself named OU President, Boren has led the university into spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new buildings and other construction projects. Even the usually uncritical campus newspaper has questioned this. How do we explain his seemingly insatiable appetite for brick and mortar? One likely explanation is that Boren was raised with the idea that he was going to grow up to be President of the USA. According to Oklahoma Today magazine (1998 Year in Review), his father Lyle, a U.S. Congressman, encouraged him to have this aspiration. In an editorial, The Norman Transcript (May 24, 2001) wrote that politician Boren "was mentioned often as a potential candidate for the nation's presidency or vice-presidency." He was mentioned just often enough to keep his dreams alive. With every new contract Boren grants for a new building, there's another note he can call in for a donation when he decides to re-enter electoral politics.

Boren was a quiet candidate for the year 2000 Reform Party nomination. His posture was that he could not openly campaign for the nomination, but he was willing to accept a draft. Before the election there was a Reform Party committee to draft Boren.

A Logical Question: Why Did He Give Up his Senate Seat?

When he resigned from the U.S. Senate, with two years remaining on his term, Boren was enjoying high national visibility as Chairman of the powerful Intelligence Committee. He had been re-elected in 1990 with an 83% majority. One may ask: if I Boren wanted to be President of the USA, why did he give up this seat?

In his public statements following his announcement about leaving the Senate, Boren tried to leave the impression that a deep affection for OU was a strong motivating factor. This was merely public posturing. One reason why this is not credible was that at the very moment he was announcing his departure, the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond was completing architectural plans for the David L. Boren State Archives Library (The Daily Oklahoman, April 29, 1994). Why was he not arranging for OU to host his library?

A more likely explanation for his surprise resignation is suggested by an article in the gay publication, The Texas Triangle, in its issue of July 14, 1993. Writer Bob Roehr reports the acccusations by Queer Nation activist Michael Petrelis, who denounced Boren as a closet homosexual guilty of sexually harassing his male staff members. Boren's staff was contacted and invited to comment. His press secretary declined. A few months later Boren was in Norman campaigning for the OU President job. I have carefully researched the evidence for assessing the credibility of Petrelis' accusations, and invite readers to follow the link and evaluate it.

Prominent Examples of Financial Irresponsibility

The New Museum in the Red

One of Boren's extravagant construction projects has been a new museum of natural history. An Open Records Act request by Norman resident and Boren critic Elmer Z. ("EZ") Million exposed the fact that during Fiscal Year '02 the museum had lost almost $4 million.

Boren Makes a Gift of $17.6 Million in OU Funds to Athletic Department

Under another Open Records Act request, Million exposed the fact that during August 2001 Boren led OU into making an extraordinary loan of $12 million to the athletic department. The substance of the matter is that OU actually made a gift of $17.6 million to the athletic program. Here's how the deal worked.

This was an interest-free loan with a 20-year pay-out period. At the time it was made, the prime rate was 8%. An ordinary loan of $12 million would have required an interest burden of another $12 million over 20 years. Secondly, OU forgave $5.6 million of the principal at the front end. By adding these two sums together we arrive at a $17.6 million gift from OU.

The Oklahoma Daily, the student newspaper, admitted in an otherwise uncritical editorial (September 9, 2002) that the athletic department was "in the red" for years. This is because fair-weather fans, demanding that OU always win at football, had deserted the team during the mediocre football years of the 90s. Because they won the championship in 2000 the dream of OU football glory forever has returned.

All my life we have been told that the athletic department is a "separate budget" and that it is self-supporting through ticket sales and donations. When the guy in charge is a politician who acts more like a monarch than a responsible public official, these rules can be bent.

Bonded Indebtedness of Athletic Department: $152 Million

Under Boren OU has engaged in a massive expansion of athletic facilities. This involved bulldozing a historic neighborhood east of the campus and re-routing a Norman street to accommodate the stadium expansion. OU also built a hideous new building at the park east of campus. It is an indoor football practice facility and looks like a huge airline hanger.

To finance these projects OU had to sell revenue bonds. The booklet issued for the bond issue offering tells some unpleasant truths which Oklahoma newspapers, in a state which Boss Boren controls as ruthlessly as Al Capone ruled Chicago, have refused to disclose. The 2002 bonded indebtedness of the athletic program was $152 million, to be paid in 30 years. That's about $5 million per year.

The same document discloses the financial performance of the athletic department for the years 1997-01. The average annual loss for the department was about a million dollars for the last three years of the 90s. Then Coach Bob Stoops showed up and restored the dream of eternal football glory, by winning the championship in 2000. For ticket sales and donations, 2001 was the best of all possible years. That year the department's surplus was only a million dollars -- about four million short of what they need annually for 30 years.

Bottom line? Boren is desperate for cash to pay for these extravaganzas, and he's raiding students' pockets to bail himself out. For new students who are Oklahoma residents, the 2003 tuition increase was 39%. The average increase for all main campus students was 35%. Boren's already talking about another increase for 2004-05.

If parents want to send their kids to OU to pay for new athletic facilities, the new museum, and high salaries for Boren's various friends and loyalists on the payroll, that's their decision. They deserve to know where their money is going.

Boren's $10 Million Waste for "Excellence" Myth

Let's start here. An earlier OU President, Bill Banowski, had announced that one of his goals was to see OU admitted to the prestigious Association of American Universities. This has never happened. In the face of this reality Boren struggles for ways to polish OU's academic image.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education (10/15/99), Boren talks about the decade of mediocre performance by the football team. He seems to think that a losing team by itself is somehow sufficient to raise the academic image of a university. This peculiar idea is indicated when he says:

"From my perspective, the time we've gone through, of difficulty and struggle in football, has been good over all. It's been good for our national image in academic circles...I don't think we need to have any national championships."

By spring 2002, in the wake of the Stoops coaching miracle, we have seen that Boren had reversed himself completely and committed the university to a $75 million stadium expansion. Along the way he saw to the destruction of the remnants of the once-beautiful Fairie Queen Lane neighborhood.

Boren is left with reliance on the fact that OU has 800 National Merit scholars in attendance for supporting his boast that OU, where journalism students don't even know the location of the Pacific Ocean, is a university of "excellence." He would have us believe that these students (1) as high school seniors were competent as expert evaluators of the academic merits of various universities, and (2) that they chose OU on the basis of its "reputation" as an "excellent" school.

Ready for reality? Boren bribes them into coming here with handsome scholarship and benefit packages. Non-residents are given $65,000 and residents $37,000.

I don't know the ratio of resident to non-resident, but let's assume it's 50:50. That would be an average of $51,000. Multiply that by 800 and the result is $40.8 million. Assume these gifted students complete their undergraduate programs in four years, and we arrive at $10.2 million per year paid out to attract them here, so Boren can brag about "excellence."

Most of them probably leave after getting their free education here at the expense of Oklahoma taxpayers and tuition-payers. A State Regents' study released in 2002 found that only 18% to 27% of non-resident graduates of Oklahoma universities are still in the state after five years.

Boren Tries to Lie and Scheme his Way Through a Desperate Situation

Faced with his history of acting like a year-round Santa Claus for the building contractors, his use of OU funds to bribe Merit Scholars, and his administrative bureaucracy swollen by highly-paid loyalists and cronies, Boren became severely encumbered by the success of his revered patron Eddy Gaylord in undermining the legislature's ability to tax. Entangled within a trick bag of his own making, a prisoner of his own uncontrollable lust for power, and wondering if OU will have to provide another financial rescue to pay for the new stadium should the football team's fortunes fall again, he sees no escape other than to burden the students with continuaing annual tuition increases.

Anyone with half a brain would have known to expect a revenue shortfall and budget crisis in the wake of the economic shock experienced by the nation consequent to the 9/11 attack. In spite of this, Boren and the OU Regents were inviting construction bids for the stadium expansion in December 2001. Although "private funds" from athletic department donations and ticket sales are officially "expected" to pay for this, we have already seen that when the athletic department is having problems, Boren will bail them out. Under Boren's reign, besides the stadium there have been other athletic facilities expansion, including the construction of a huge indoor football practice facility.

What troubles Boren is the need to prepare for the financial misfortunes and unpleasant contingencies wrought by his mismanagement. Unrestricted power to raise tuition at will is his solution. In April 2002 Boren was campaigning with the State Regents for a 7% tuition hike. Under state law this is the maximum allowed for residents without legislative approval. This was granted. In the fall Boren was again demanding more tuition and fees and campaigning for the legislature to grant him and the State Regents unrestricted power to raise tuition without consent of elected representatives.

Attempt to Interfere with Hiring Process for New Chancellor

Part of Boren's strategy to control tuition and maximize his power included having a trusted crony for Chancellor of Higher Education. Faced with the announcement of Hans Brisch's retirement, Boren boldly attempted to influence the State Regents' decision-making process for a replacement. According to The Daily Oklahoman (November 12, 2002), Boren and several college presidents petitioned the Regents to hire Glen Johnson, president of Southeastern State University in Durant. Boren's excuse for this atrocious behavior was that he "preferred someone already in Oklahoma higher education who would not require on-the-job training." The majority of State Regents ignored Boren's pressure and hired Paul Risser, President of Oregon State.

Risser likely knows of the attempt to obstruct his appointment. It was reported in the Oregon State campus newspaper. See the last paragraph of the article in The Daily Barometer.

Retiring Chancellor Brisch Supported Boren with Misleading Statements

In September 2002, Chancellor Brisch was making public statements indicating he had been corrupted by Boren. Supporting the Boren scheme for more tuition, he was quoted by The Daily Oklahoman (September 29, 2002) making misleading statements:

The chancellor said that because of its low tuition, Oklahoma is failing to draw all the federal dollars it should be getting.

Federal Pell grants will pay for the first $4,000 in college expenses for students who qualify. Since Oklahoma's tuition is $3,000 or less per year, depending on the university, eligible students are not getting as much as they could from the federal government, Brisch said.

Oklahoma ends up being a feeder state, he said, paying money to Washington, but not getting it back in student aid.

The problem with these statements is that federal Pell grants pay for other college expenses including housing, food, and even computers. In fact an OU student told me that he was receiving $4,000 under his Pell grant. If Hans Brisch actually believed his own words, then he was so ignorant he was not qualified for the position he occupied. If he deliberately lied, then he was immoral. In either event his behavior was deplorable.

Boren's Lies in The Oklahoma Daily

For David Boren, lying is second nature. He also has a talent for convincing others subservient to him into reinforcing his lies. On October 30, 2002, he had an ad in The Oklahoma Daily in which he claimed that OU was suffering from a 13.19% cut in state funding. He also manipulated the Daily into giving students the same disinformation. Additionally, the amateurish Daily appears unable to distinguish between a budget cut and a reduction in appropriations from the State Regents. They erroneously make the situation look more severe than it is by misleading readers into thinking that the university "budget" is being cut by 13.19%.

The truth was reported on page 1 of The Norman Transcript (December 6, 2002). From the state's higher education appropriation of $851.3 million, approved in the spring of 2002, there was a 4.34% cut announced in September. In December another reduction of 1.64% was announced. The total of both was approximately 6%.

Boren arrived at the claim of a 13.19% cut with the following tricks:

1. even though we were in budget year FY 03, he reported a FY '02 cut of 3.85% in the total; since FY 02 was history, this was obviously misleading;

2. in addition to the actual cut of 4.34%, he made the claim of an FY 03 cut of 2%; he did this because the initial FY 03 budget was 2% smaller than the initial FY 02 budget;

3. he "anticipated" an additional cut of 3%; when this materialized in December, it was only 1.64%.

On December 6, the Daily correctly reported that the reduction was from $851.3 to $801.8 million. One wonders why they cannot figure out that a 6% cut is indicated by those numbers. I suppose if Big Brother tells them that 2 + 2 = 5, then they must believe it.

Actual Budget Cut Far Less Severe

The actual cut in the OU FY '03 budget is far less severe than Boren and his unquestioning servants at the Daily would have us believe. State appropriations are only about one-fourth of the total OU budget. Thus a 6% cut in appropriations is about a 1.5% cut in the budget. The OU appropriation approved in spring 2002 was $123,318,873. The 5.98% cut equals $7,374,468 from a total original budget of $505.8 million.

The Whopper of Friday the 13th

On Friday, December 13, Boren made an absolutely outrageous statement in the Daily. He said:

"If state revenue dropped $200 million more, the rest of state government would have to be cut in excess of 30 percent to keep education unharmed, Boren said."

Boren's statement is absolutely unjustifiable. According to The Daily Oklahoman (September 22, 2002), the FY '03 budget for the state was $5.35 billion. In September a $213 million shortfall was reported. This leaves a budget of about $5.137 billion. The current share for higher education is $801.8 million (Norman Transcript (December 6, 2002). That leaves $4.335 billion for all other agencies. Another shortfall of $200 million, while leaving higher education intact, would mean a 4.6% cut for all other agencies. That's a little shy of 30%.

More Misleading Statements by Boren

On September 10, the Office of State Finance announced that there would be a 4.75% reduction in funds available to Oklahoma agencies. The cut for higher education, to be the same for all campuses, was 4.34%. For OU this would be about $5.4 million.

Boren Tells a Different Story

On September 13, Boren was quoted in the Daily saying he expected "another $7 million in cuts in state allocations." This would be about 5.7% of the original appropriation. In his October 30 ad, he contradicted this by predicting another 3% cut. The actual reduction which was later announced by the State Regents was 1.64%.

Boren's Boy Wonder Press Secretary

In evaluating Boren's statements to the press, one has to be reminded that a member of the OU search committee which nominated him to be President was an undergraduate student named Jeff Hickman. The Daily Oklahoman (April 22, 1994) reported that Hickman was making enthusiastic comments about Boren before he was named as the new President. He was a sophomore then. That suggests he would be about 27 now (2002).

Boren later made Hickman his personal press secretary. More than likely, Hickman got his job by demonstrating his loyalty to Boren back then. His salary in the FY 03 budget is $40,000.

Ruling Through Fear and Intimidation

Boren is possessed by a deep desire to control all information about him and OU and make sure that nothing unflattering is ever known to the public.

In rare moments, The Oklahoma Daily pokes its head out of the swamp like an alligator and speaks the forbidden truth about Boren and his administration. One of these occasions was April 27, 2001, when the Daily exposed the attempt by Boren lackey Nancy Mergler, OU Provost, to intimidate the faculty and staff and obstruct them from speaking independently to the press. Her memo was reproduced on the front page, but unfortunately the complete text was not made available in the online version. Here it is, reproduced exactly as it was sent by e-mail, complete with grammatical and punctuation errors:

Deans, Directors, and Chairs, PLEASE remind all your faculty and staff to co-ordinate any contact with the media through Catherine Bishop, Vice President for Public Affairs, 325-1543, or Jeff Hickman, Press Secretary to the President, 325-3916. Yesterday they learned of a faculty member who had arranged for a reporter from NBC Nightly News to interview her entire class. Such details as talent release forms had not been attended to...not good.

Please, if a reporter (local or national), calls a staff members or a faculty member, they need to IMMEDIATELY alert either Catherine or Jeff and you as well. Catherine and Jeff respond quickly and appropriately, they are well trained professionals.

Nancy Mergler

Three days later the Daily commented on this with an editorial entitled "Let press have access to OU faculty." They accused the administration of trying to restrict the media's access to OU staff and their opinions. They said, "that is exactly what OU has tried to do during the tenure of President David Boren." They cited the fact that the position of press representative for the campus police was abolished. They correctly pointed out that OU is a public institution, and that the media have a "right to information not filtered through a public affairs arm." Finally, they observed that the administration has caused "faculty and staff to fear talking to members of the press in general."

Daily Says Only Good News Expected from OU Administration

In its editorial, there was a limit to how far the Daily was willing to go in criticising the administration. Backpeddling a little and with poor grammar, they wrote:

We don't want to say that OU Public Affairs and the press secretary aren't doing their jobs. Quite the contrary. The missions of these people is [sic] to get out the "positive" news about OU. No one expects them to send out press releases to tell the media when something bad happens. They are just getting too involved the normal everyday aspects of press coverage [sic].

Why is this the expectation? The Daily, even though the editors in this rare instance are trying to be critical, have capitulated to the idea that it's normal for a university administration to control information in a politically manipulated way instead of telling the truth to the public.

January 2003 Update

USA Today Discloses Some Bad News

Like all good Sooners, the Daily gushes with uncritical praise of the football program, now that Bob Stoops has restored the winning tradition. It's up to writers and journalists outside of Boren's sphere of power to tell unpleasant truths.

Such a moment of revelation happened on January 17, 2003, when the lead editorial of USA Today disclosed OU's scandalously low graduation rate for athletes during the four-year interval beginning with 1998. For male basketball players it was zero percent and for football players it was a dismal 26 percent. These realities put to rest Boren's boasts that OU is a university of "excellence."

October 2003 Update

Student Newspaper Describes "Culture of Fear" at OU

David Boren is very adept at ruling by fear and intimidation. In October 2003, in a rare editorial bold enough to criticize the state of affairs at OU, The Oklahoma Daily used the phrase “culture of fear” to describe the atmosphere at the school. With obvious implied reference to Boren as the “former politician,” the Daily continued:

Often, members of the OU community whom The Daily tries to speak to tell reporters they have been told not to talk, or that the reporter should talk to an official source.

There is a reason these answers are given.

OU is a large, public organization run by a former politician that has an interest in making itself look good.

A letter published by The Norman Transcript (March 23, 2003) also described OU as a “culture of fear.” The writer expressed opposition to Boren’s plan to create a gargantuan new weather center south of the main campus. It was signed “Name Withheld.” ¹⁷

November 2003 Update

Boren Wants to Raise Tuition Again for 2004-05

Boren is already whining that he needs even more money and is talking about another tuition increase for academic year 2004-05. The Oklahoma Daily has already capitulated to Boren's desire by writing, in an editorial, "it is not a matter of whether 2004-2005 fees will be increased, but by how much." The same editorial made a statement which looked like it had been doctored by Boren. They claimed that the most recent tuition increase "came about when OU was facing a $24 million budget shortfall."

This was in stark contrast to Boren's claims made earlier in 2003, when he was saying that the campus would suffer from a $19 million shortfall unless he was able to raise tuition to the level he wanted. Then, after the FY 04 budget was released in August, I started distributing the information that he enjoyed a $24.5 million increase in tuition and fees -- far more than the $19 million he was earlier saying was necessary. Now, history has been re-written at good old OU. The anticipated $19 million shortfall was magically been transformed into a $24 million shortfall !

It was all just mirrors and illusions. According to the budget, Boren is actually enjoying form all revenue sources an increase of more than $14 million in comparison to the FY 03 main campus budget. The will give Boren plenty of extra loot to meet the bond payment for the athletic department and cover for the loss at the dinosaur museum.

By the way, one of the museum's featured exhibits is a fossil named for Boren: the Atokatheridium Boreni Atoka. It was discovered in Atoka County, Oklahoma. I kid you not. This man has sycophants and boot-lickers all over the place. Even the paleontologists at OU feel obliged to pay homage to him.

The news story about this in the Ardmore newspaper first said that the fossil had been a dinosaur. In the same article it is called a mammal. For those of us who had earlier believed that dinosaurs were reptiles, this was quite a surprise.

April 2004 Update

OU Administrators Defy State Open Records Act

In April 2004, the Daily published an editorial under the headline: "Sweeping Away the Spirit of Democracy at OU." It was about the fact that the administration either drags its feet or denies Open Records Act requests. The editorial stated that OU is violating state law if it isintentionally delaying the release of the records. The Daily concluded:

When Boren ran for governor in 1974, he used a broom as his campaign symbol and vowed to sweep up corruption in the state Capitol.

It now seems that OU is using Boren's broom to sweep information under the rug. Maybe OU deserves its own "clean sweep."

Sordid History: OU Professor Accuses White Students of Killing ML King

In February 2004, I made a very simple Open Records Act request for a list of all publications completed by OU Professor George Henderson before 1968. This is because the Daily reported that Henderson had published 28 articles in the areas of human relations and education (4/13/68). I assume Henderson told them this. I was dubious about this claim and wondered whether they were works of peer-reviewed scholarship published in academic journals. OU denied the request, which was about information which supposedly had already been published, on the same day I made it.

Go here for my reasons for doubting Henderson. Be sure to inspect the evidence from The Big Red Eye.

For more information about Henderson, see this memoir by Tom Blaise Shepherd, who was an OU student when Martin Luther King was assassinated. See his autobiographical sketch. A civil rights activist in the 1950s, Shepherd was shocked when Henderson, OU's prominent black professor who has made a career of capitalizing on his ethnicity, looked at the white students in attendance and said: "You killed him." Henderson's accusatorial statement was reported on the front page of the Daily (4/6/68).

Conclusion

During the Boren administration, OU has been ruled by a liar, buffoon, and tyrant. The atmosphere at that school is dominated by fear, secrecy, and financial misconduct. The time to remove him from office along with his crew of loyal sycophants and cronies is way overdue. The Daily editorial says "maybe OU deserves its own 'clean sweep." I'll be more definite: it's time to throw the bums out.

Go here for information about the author.

Related Pages

A spring 2002 analysis of the history of the tuition and budget situation at OU.

More examples of incompetence, blundering, and dishonesty at OU under David Boren's leadership.

Examples of amateurism, immaturity, and blundering incompetence by The Oklahoma Daily the OU student newspaper.