The Higher Unlearning

LINKS AND FURTHER EDITING FORTHCOMING. This is a first cut on this one. Inside Higher Ed (and Rick Seltzer in particular) caught up with the Executive leadership mess now unfolding in Greenville . Cecil Staton has had one foot out the door for at least 9 months. (It was very interesting watching the Board of Governors, and Staton, struggle to respond when some of the BoG radicals tried to savage Staton and ECU several months ago). Now Staton is going -- and (like Tom Ross, and probably Margaret Spellings) he has a 'non-disparagement' clause for his severance contract.  (Hell, if they had given me one of those payouts, I probably never would have considered writing these things. Then again, that would have meant nightly and nasty visits from Cato's Ghost, so I probably would have been shamed into backing out of any payout deal. Sometimes cowardice protects you from being stupid, too.) 

If I was asked to advise the Governor on the challenge of clawing back the office's appointment authority for the 17 campus Boards of Trustee that was stripped in H17 back in December 2016 , I would recommend an appeal to republican principles of governance-- divided authority, limited powers, etc. -- first. But knowing that partisan tribalism now trumps good old American tradition, I expect things would have to 'go legal,' and the issue would have to go to the judiciary where the last pathetic remnant of republican idealism might hopefully exist. That's the focus of this blog entry.  Before making the argument, however, you would have to get by the Governor's legal/political counsel, who would be advising against anything that doesn't result in aggrandizing the Governor's partisan capital. That would have been a very hard sell when the Governor was first elected, and was fighting some potentially more easily winnable battles. But it might be easier...