A riches of embarrassment

by | Oct 16, 2015 | Editor's Blog, UNC | 17 comments

Republicans always tell us they want to run government like a business. If they ran their businesses like they’re running North Carolina, they would be run out of town. In particular, they are embarrassing themselves as they run the University of North Carolina into the ground.

In their zeal to force their narrow ideology into every aspect of public life, the GOP legislators put a bunch of zealots and egomaniacs on the UNC Board of Governors. The first thing they did to show their muscle was to fire President Tom Ross. In a press conference following the firing, Chair John Fennebresque made a fool of himself telling reporters that Ross had done a great job and that the firing was not political. Fennebresque was not believable. In the one short hour with the media, he damaged the credibility of the board and made Ross a martyr.

And that was the highlight. It’s been downhill ever since. The search committee charged with finding Ross’ replacement has been fighting. The legislature’s passing laws micromanaging the UNC Board. And now it looks like Fennbresque is trying to force his choice for a replacement without input from the rest of the clown car.

Every time I read an article about the UNC Board of Trustees, Benny Hill music starts running through my head.

It seems that Fennebresque has found a candidate in Margaret Spelling, George W. Bush’s Secretary of Education and the architect of No Child Left Behind. Spelling might be a fine candidate. She has the main qualification that the legislature wants from a new President: she’s a Republican. Unfortunately, she might not be Republican enough for some of the flat-earthers in the GOP Senate caucus.

Fennebresque called an emergency meeting to interview Spelling, but he violated a law passed by the Big Government Republicans that would require the search committee to present three candidates to the full board. Republicans quickly started shooting at each other. Apparently, the various factions started leaking information to make sure everybody knows exactly how dysfunctional the GOP is.

Phil Berger and Tim Moore quickly weighed in with a letter saying Fennebresque’s move violates “the overwhelming will of the elected people of the State of North Carolina,” which is laughable since the legislature doesn’t even have the overwhelming support of the people of this state. Ethically-challenged former legislator and current Board member, Thom Goolsby, sent an email to Fennebresque apparently trying to torpedo Spelling’s candidacy, saying “anyone advanced under your chairmanship would be fruit from a poisonous tree.” Other Board members sent critical letters, including one that said Spelling’s candidacy would be doomed if she was “viewed as ‘the Chairman’s choice.’”

After this debacle, don’t be surprised if Spelling withdraws her name. And I would have to question the judgment of any candidate who would accept a position under this Board of Governors. What an embarrassment. Where are the adults when you need them?

17 Comments

  1. Concernedcitizen

    Wonderful piece; excellent title!

  2. Apply Liberally

    Well, apparently, Spelling has not yet show the smarts to withdraw her name, will be offered the job, and likely will take it. The reputation and capabilities of the UNC System have started to decline in recent years, due to operating budget cuts and micro-meddling by the the UNC System Board. But now, IMO, we will see the system truly tumble headlong from its position as one of the nation’s very best public systems. Everything in Spelling’s background (and one thing not there, i.e. a graduate degree) speaks to the prospect of troubled times for our universities.

  3. Henry

    I think Mr. Mills post contains an error.

    He suggests that the Board has broken a law by not presenting three candidates for final consideration. According to the news I heard today (10/21), that law has yet to be signed by McCroy. If that’s the case, the Board has not yet broken any law, and the law would also have to have a time in which it is effective (could be later).

    Just my two pennies.

  4. Ebrun

    The Republican-controlled NC General Assembly just authorized a $2 billion bond issue election which, if passed by the voters, would provide the lion’s share ($980 million) of the funding to the UNC system. Yet University supporters wring their hands claiming UNC is being under funded.

    • TbeT

      Having worked for Cornell for 30 years, 13 of them as a faculty member, I can only say that faculty there would welcome lively debate and inquiry on all societal issues — as long as they felt that such discourse was based on insightful thinking and serious scholarship, as opposed to being imposed by political partisans and/or ideologs outside the university community.

      I am quite prorgessive in my personal politics. I still can recall one interaction there, on the environmental “taking” issue, which had one colleague chastising me for not supporting a heavier-handed federal role in coastal zone management, while another one insisting that I was blind to the limits to what government can and should do.

      • Ted

        I included the link only because I agree with the professors’ assessment, which pretty bluntly sums up what the far right’s role in higher education should be … I certainly do encourage a diversity of opinions … variety is the spice of life as they say … but they have to, at the very least, surpass a certain threshold of sincerity and/or be devoid of any overtly cynical self-interest. I’m just not seeing much of that from the right these days.

  5. Someone from Main Street

    Why would this woman withdraw her name? She was a vocal advocate for No Child Left Behind. Now that she’s left the nation’s young students very far behind our global peers, time to turn attention to college students in our great state – most of whom are woefully unprepared for college, thanks to NCLB (though NCGOP has been pitching it as the fault of public education.)

  6. Frank McGuirt

    Your lead into this story makes a point. I get sick of politicians saying they’re going to run government as a business. Government is NOT business, it’s government. There is no profit incentive. The function of government is service. In this case the board leadership is providing a disservice. When the southeast’s foremost public university is run like this we all suffer.

    • TY Thompson

      Somehow, I don’t think this is why the “southeast’s foremost public university” got put on academic probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. 😉

    • Jane Smith

      RIght on target!

  7. Ghost of Reagan

    How did this buffoon become Vice Chairman of McGuirewoods? I can’t imagine law firm clients would appreciate such treatment.

  8. margaretc

    Bring back the Speaker Law! You know that’s what they want….

  9. An Observer

    “violates “the overwhelming will of the elected people of the State of North Carolina”

    “violates “the overwhelming will of the elected morons of the State of North Carolina”

    There, fixed it.

    • Apply Liberally

      An Observer: Yeah, curious they used the term “will of the elected people” Me thinx their super-majority is a tad too well embedded in their heads!

  10. Apply Liberally

    An internal yet very public GOP food fight over one of the most important hires a government can make.
    Sounds exactly like what the Party of the Dysfunctional is doing in the US House, don’t it?

  11. Cosmic janitor

    The antics of this of ship of fools’, known as the Republikan UNC Board of Governors , could be viewed as comical if it went for the Orwellian implications of the whole affair and the end result portends to be as horrifying, as it will be a disaster, for the university system as well as the state.

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