Little Tyrants
Here's another long thing.
My little weekend visit to Kentucky took me briefly through Louisville, and I spent a half-hour roaming around the University of Louisville campus so I could grab this picture of Grawemeyer Hall. This structure--built to be a library in 1926 and modeled after Thomas Jefferson's Monticello--houses the university's administration and serves as its front door. A lot's been going on in this building over the last year, thanks to a lot of infighting and the "help" of Kentucky's illustrious little tin pot, Governor Matt Bevin.
Little political fights take place in and around public universities all the time, but this one's grown insidious. This has turned into one of those fights that stabs at the heart of representative democracy and the separation of powers and the notions of academic independence and integrity, and it threatens the very existence of this university that's operated since 1798 and currently serves more than 22,000 students.
Here's the short version. For a couple of years now, a growing number of people have alleged shenanigans in the U of L administration. Some members of the Board of Trustees had accused James Ramsey--U of L president since 2002--of conflicts of interest and alleged financial malfeasance. The president survived a no-confidence vote, but the board had subsequently failed to come up with a budget. The board became deadlocked by infighting, so in stepped Governor Matt Bevin to save the day.
Matt Bevin--a Tea Party Republican best known for his love of cockfighting and his tendency toward tax evasion--has spent his year in office picking fights and trying to toss people out of state-appointed jobs he doesn't have the authority to toss out. Evidently, he hates any group anywhere that uses the name "Board." He's tried asserting the Governor has all sort of powers the Governor does not actually have. In fact, the university's financial woes stemmed mostly from an executive order (later deemed unlawful by the state Supreme Court) that cut the school's budget by 5%. So how did Matt Bevin respond to the supposed intransigence of the Board? He fired everybody. The university president offered to instead resign, and Bevin accepted the resignation, but fired everybody anyway. He replaced those fired with a three-person cabal that will eventually appoint 13 or so hand-picked successors.
Now, the state attorney general--who, because it's Kentucky, is the son of the governor Matt Bevin replaced--has sued Bevin on the grounds that the firing of a university Board of Trustees is beyond the authority of the Governor's office. He'll probably win, and it probably won't matter, because the recent election shifted power in both houses of the General Assembly to the Republicans for the first time since the Civil War (if you don't count about five minutes in the 1970s). One of the first things these Republicans did is start pushing through a bill giving Bevin the authority to do what he did, so it'll probably stand.
Which is where the big problem really comes down for the University of Louisville. In the wake of Bevin's mass purge of the board, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools--the sanctioning body that handles UofL's accredidation--placed the university on probation. In academics, this is a big deal, as it affects funding for all sorts of things, like research, student aid, and participation in NCAA sports. The association's claim is that the board's firing violates rules mandating political independence for academic institutions so that schools can be assured academic freedom outside of political pressures. The university has a year to clear this up or risk losing accreditation. Matt Bevin says the General Assembly's action will take care of it. People from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools say it will not. So it's entirely possible that this time next year, the 22,000 students of the second largest public university in the Commonwealth of Kentucky could find themselves working toward a worthless degree with no way to pay for it.
Little Tyrants
Here's another long thing.
My little weekend visit to Kentucky took me briefly through Louisville, and I spent a half-hour roaming around the University of Louisville campus so I could grab this picture of Grawemeyer Hall. This structure--built to be a library in 1926 and modeled after Thomas Jefferson's Monticello--houses the university's administration and serves as its front door. A lot's been going on in this building over the last year, thanks to a lot of infighting and the "help" of Kentucky's illustrious little tin pot, Governor Matt Bevin.
Little political fights take place in and around public universities all the time, but this one's grown insidious. This has turned into one of those fights that stabs at the heart of representative democracy and the separation of powers and the notions of academic independence and integrity, and it threatens the very existence of this university that's operated since 1798 and currently serves more than 22,000 students.
Here's the short version. For a couple of years now, a growing number of people have alleged shenanigans in the U of L administration. Some members of the Board of Trustees had accused James Ramsey--U of L president since 2002--of conflicts of interest and alleged financial malfeasance. The president survived a no-confidence vote, but the board had subsequently failed to come up with a budget. The board became deadlocked by infighting, so in stepped Governor Matt Bevin to save the day.
Matt Bevin--a Tea Party Republican best known for his love of cockfighting and his tendency toward tax evasion--has spent his year in office picking fights and trying to toss people out of state-appointed jobs he doesn't have the authority to toss out. Evidently, he hates any group anywhere that uses the name "Board." He's tried asserting the Governor has all sort of powers the Governor does not actually have. In fact, the university's financial woes stemmed mostly from an executive order (later deemed unlawful by the state Supreme Court) that cut the school's budget by 5%. So how did Matt Bevin respond to the supposed intransigence of the Board? He fired everybody. The university president offered to instead resign, and Bevin accepted the resignation, but fired everybody anyway. He replaced those fired with a three-person cabal that will eventually appoint 13 or so hand-picked successors.
Now, the state attorney general--who, because it's Kentucky, is the son of the governor Matt Bevin replaced--has sued Bevin on the grounds that the firing of a university Board of Trustees is beyond the authority of the Governor's office. He'll probably win, and it probably won't matter, because the recent election shifted power in both houses of the General Assembly to the Republicans for the first time since the Civil War (if you don't count about five minutes in the 1970s). One of the first things these Republicans did is start pushing through a bill giving Bevin the authority to do what he did, so it'll probably stand.
Which is where the big problem really comes down for the University of Louisville. In the wake of Bevin's mass purge of the board, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools--the sanctioning body that handles UofL's accredidation--placed the university on probation. In academics, this is a big deal, as it affects funding for all sorts of things, like research, student aid, and participation in NCAA sports. The association's claim is that the board's firing violates rules mandating political independence for academic institutions so that schools can be assured academic freedom outside of political pressures. The university has a year to clear this up or risk losing accreditation. Matt Bevin says the General Assembly's action will take care of it. People from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools say it will not. So it's entirely possible that this time next year, the 22,000 students of the second largest public university in the Commonwealth of Kentucky could find themselves working toward a worthless degree with no way to pay for it.