The UC Berkeley graduate journalism school is apparently requesting that its students refrain from asking questions about why an official from an upstate New York college rejected the $230,600-a-year post of journalism dean, according to the Contra Costa Times.

Times reporter Matt Krupnick reports that he was confronted with secrecy at every turn as he attempted to investigate Dianne Lynch’s decision to turn down the job for a second time. UC Berkeley refused to provide Lynch’s resume to him. Faculty members and students stonewalled him. And he even was refused an interview by former dean Orville Schell.

Krupnick reported that students have complained in blog postings about the secrecy, noting the irony of a journalism school asking its students not to ask questions. Student Timothy Lesle wrote online: “Remember Day 1 of journalism school: You are reporters and we expect you to act that way. … Until we tell you not to.”