Gophers bosses outraged over leak? How about the actual sexual harassment?

Randy Handel was hired by Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi in 2010 to pursue major financial contributions for the needs and wishes of the athletic department. He was promoted to associate athletic director by Norwood Teague, Maturi's successor, in 2013.

The Gophers have been engaged for several years in the most aggressive fundraising ever for athletics, in the pursuit of $170 million for the new facilities set to open in January.

Handel has been the person in charge of this fundraising, hitting up corporations and wealthy individuals to get pledges of multimillions and keep the debt service on this shrine to football and basketball (primarily) to a minimum.

This has made Handel very much a public figure, which should have made him subject to the same revelations of embarrassing behavior as was his second boss at the university — Mr. Teague.

When Teague was found to have engaged in harassing behavior toward women, university President Eric Kaler held a news conference, a full report was issued and Teague lost his job.

When a sexual harassment complaint against Handel was supported in a finding by the university's Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, there was no announcement from Kaler or athletic director Mark Coyle that he had been found in violation of conduct policies (and presumably was appealing).

The university's excuse for trying to cover up this information was that "personnel issues are private."

They weren't very private with Norwood Teague. They didn't stay private with 10 football players recommended for discipline by the EOAA, even though five wound up being fully exonerated.

Personnel issues are private for someone confirming renewal applications in the ticket office. There is no such privacy for a figure as public and important in the athletic department as Handel.

Dean Johnson is a likable phoof who has risen to chairman of the Board of Regents. And he has now upped the ante for phoof-ness with his response to the KSTP-Channel 5 report Wednesday night on the harassment finding against Handel.

Our guy Dean-o is steaming mad, and it's about the news being leaked, and not so much to the action partaken by Handel that led to the complaint and then the EOAA's finding.

The Channel 5 report said a confidential memo revealing the Handel finding had been provided to a reporter by a regent. Johnson and other board members decided the proper action was to get the regents and U employees who saw the e-mail to sign affidavits stating they did not share the memo with Channel 5.

The response of Johnson should have been: "We're very upset that another important member of our athletic department has been found by our EOAA office to have engaged in harassing behavior."

The response of Johnson was (in so many words): "Who was it that ruined our closely held secret that another important member of our athletic department appears to have engaged in harassing behavior?"

Johnson said he wants these affidavits signed because of the disappointment "that a member of the university community may have betrayed the public's trust."

Actually, Dean-o, what a member of the university community has done is allow the public to look behind the veil of secrecy and see there's a likelihood that nonsense still is taking place with important people in the athletic department.

I'm thinking Johnson's theory on this, that the serious problem wasn't the action but the leak, might allow him to regain his Republican credentials from years back and wind up in a job with the current administration in Washington, D.C.

There have been several endorsements for Handel's character in the local media, including booster Lou Nanne's comment that Randy is a "hugger" by nature — an apparent suggestion by Lou that could have been the basis of a misunderstanding with the complainant in this case.

We don't give hints as to the victim in these cases. I'll just counter that the Huggin' Handel angle doesn't pass muster.

Admittedly, there is skepticism over conclusions reached by the EOAA, particularly after its overreaching, one-sided investigation into a woman's accusation of sexual assault and harassment by 10 football players.

There were passages thrown into the football players' report that the EOAA investigators knew were completely improbable. And in the end, five players recommended for discipline by the EOAA were exonerated.

Since then, the director in charge of that flawed investigation, Kimberly Hewitt, has left. And the fact the current EOAA found against Handel, important figure in the athletic department, for sexual harassment is news, just as were the actions taken in the football case.

Meaning, the leak of the memo served the public better than will your affidavits, Chairman Johnson.

Patrick Reusse can be heard 3-6 p.m. weekdays on AM-1500. • preusse@startribune.com