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.
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I’m often accused of being a geek. It’s a fair cop. I’ve been reading science fiction books for over 40 years, ever since I learned to read. But I’ve never been the kind of geek that goes to conventions. I’ve been perfectly happy just reading the books. But then along came the internet and with it new chances to join the community of science fiction fans. So I started participating in some message boards and getting to know some of my favorite authors online.
The man shown to the left is sportscaster Robert Lee. The man to the right is Confederate General Robert E. Lee. ESPN was afraid that viewers would mix them up.
