After fierce protests at their high-handed action, the trustees at the University of Virginia had to humiliatingly reverse course and voted unanimously to reinstate the president Teresa Sullivan whom they had just forced out.
The chair of the trustees Helen E. Dragas should have resigned as a result of this debacle because she was one of the ringleaders behind the ouster. It is hard for a university president to function effectively without the full backing of the board, especially the chair, and I would hope that the governor of the state will recognize this and urge Dragas to resign.
But she seems determined to stay on. The question remains as to whether she will try and undermine the president in more subtle ways in order to further her own agenda.
Actually, her term is up so all the governor has to do is to decline to reappoint her.
Apparently one factor on her dismissal was that she fought against the frivolous freedom of information act requests on climate scientist. Score one for the good guys.
I only have half the story… why was Sullivan ousted?
Kevin Carey’s article that I linked to in my previous post gives the background.
A letter where Sullivan responds to educational orgs about the frivolous FOIA requests:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/4-21-11-Letter-from-UVA-to-Coalition-Orgs.pdf
Thanks, I’ll have to check it out at home, it gets blocked at work.