Marathon Pundit: New revelation in Chicago Annenberg Challenge records release

The University of Illinois-Chicago isn't looking so good after the Chicago Tribune reveals that UIC contacted the Chicago Annenberg Challenge's former executive director about whether the school should withhold the documents from the public.

From the Chicago "free registration may be required" Tribune:

The disclosure adds a new wrinkle to questions about the university's handling of records from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform group that pumped $50 million into Chicago Public Schools. Obama was board president and Ayers help organize the charity in 1995.

Republicans have been attempting to link Obama to Ayers, a UIC education professor who was a founder of the 1960s Weather Underground anti-war group that claimed responsibility for several bombings.

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge turned over all of its documents to be archived in the Richard J. Daley Library at the university in 2001, but last month university officials balked when it received a request from National Review magazine reporter Stanley Kurtz to review the files. The university initially said it temporarily blocked that request in order to do an inquiry into the circumstances of the gift of the records.

But e-mails released in response to a law student's Freedom of Information Act request show university officials had a series of exchanges with Kenneth Rolling, the charity's former executive director, days before the files of the charity were opened to the public.