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Faculty, Students Prioritize Skin Color, Gender in Hiring University President
A rabid pack of faculty and students at the University of South Carolina — a small minority, in non-STEM departments — derailed a $150K headhunter effort to find the new president in April when the search board presented a slate that had no women and one black man. Only one of the four had previous experience in the position, Lt Gen Caslen (Ret) who, until recently when he retired,was a beloved commandant of West Point, rated #1 public school in the country by two publications.
There are three camps: blacks want a black, women want a woman, and faculty want a fellow PhD. They all feared he would militarize the university, claimed his values weren’t the school’s, and denigrated his military experience, West Point leadership, his MBA, and his MS in Engineering. They said he wasn’t good enough. Seems genitalia and color are the real qualifications. This despite the university claiming it doesn’t discriminate. The Trustees knuckled under and refused to vote for any of the four. An interim was chosen.
The governor has had enough and told the Trustees to meet and vote. The local mayor claimed foul even though the governor is de facto head of the Trustees, politicians got a local judge to issue an injunction, students protested, and faculty senate held a hurried meeting and insulted a fine man with a vote of no confidence tonight.
I could write for hours about the stupidity I have observed, but alas, you can imagine it just as well. The higher ed bubble couldn’t burst soon enough so we can them up. One student commented that many support him but are afraid to speak up in the current climate. I bet those students will not vote Dem when they graduate.
Published in General
I think this will end well. He has the support of the new student body president, has had a good introduction to the campus, and his supporters are now louder than his detractors. From my study of the Twitter timelines of his opponents, it was a party partisan block.
This seems to mirror a similar situation at the University of Iowa several years ago. From what little I have researched, they had the same arguments, the oppo went to court and lost on one argument then emeritus professors sued, forcing the school to settle by admitting no guilt and paying $55k in legal fees. It defies logic that they could be so petty as to sue out of spite, robbing their own school of valuable funding. The school just extended that president’s contract.
I think the issue will quietly die here but will be ever vigilant in case it doesn’t.
For my local followers, you will find this interesting. https://amp.thestate.com/opinion/op-ed/article232963647.html?__twitter_impression=true
Petty? Academics? You have obviously never been involved with a faculty if that surprises you.
The left never stops its fight.
https://www.fitsnews.com/2019/09/13/the-scholastici-the-hostile-political-takeover-of-the-university-of-south-carolina/#comment-4618743126