The announcement of KTRU's tower and signal by Rice University to the University of Houston prompted an immediate blacklash by the Rice and KTRU communities — not only against the action of the sale but the manner in which is was completed, in secrecy and during a time when students were largely unavailable to organize opposition.

The campaign to save KTRU lives on, with fans encouraged to attend the UH Board of Regents quarterly meeting on Wednesday and letter campaigns focused on the FCC and Congress.

But the public relations disaster that was kicked up over the sale has re-emerged with the publication of e-mails between officials of Rice and the University of Houston that show a deliberate attempt do hide their activies and deceive students until the sale could be finalized.

Documents disclosed in opens records requests by Texas Watchdog and KTRU include a suggestion from May to inventory the station without alerting the DJs by having Rice "provide a cover story" for an engineering consultant visit, such as "change of insurance, inventory needs, or any other plausible explanation." In the end Rice officials alerted station manager Will Robedee and select others to the potential sale, negating the issue.

In August as the deal was about to go public, Linda Thrane, the Vice President of Public Affairs at Rice, wrote:

"The e-mails were disappointing," says KTRU station manager and student Joey Yang. "Despite several promises and a 'commitment to openness and tranparency,' these e-mails shows them explicitly not to be open and transparent ... it's embarrassing behavior."

KTRU DJ director Lily Ito agrees she didn't like the way the sale was handled but said the e-mails didn't come as a surprise to her. "My opinion hasn't really changed," she says.

Both Ito and Yang referenced a similar situation at Vanderbilt University — where the school wanted to sell the radio station assets but took the issue public with the students — as a model Rice could have followed.

"Actually, Vanderbilt officials specifically referenced the situation at Rice as one they wanted to avoid," says Yang. "The administration keeps saying 'secrecy was essential,' and 'this is not our usual m.o.,' but it's becoming more and more clear that was not the case at all."

Though non-KTRU affiliated students didn't seem to be aware of the latest controversy (never underestimate Rice students' endless capacity for apathy), that may change with their publication and editorials in Rice newspaper, The Thresher, later in the week. But for those students and alums who had all but accepted the loss of KTRU's on-air capacity, the e-mails are a fresh wound.

"For a university that prides itself on empowering students to envision and meet their goals via student-body organizations, this is not just disappointing, but heartbreaking. In the recently released correspondence, it is clear that administration officials knew that handling the sale of KTRU the way they did would upset the student body and alumni, and rightfully so," says alumnus Catherine Adcock.