Rufus Montgomery constantly boasts about his clout with the Florida governor. But his failure to get rid of President James H. Ammons during the December 8 FAMU Board of Trustees meeting led Gov. Rick Scott to step in and publicly embarrass himself in front of the national media. Montgomery has lots of work to do if he wants to ever be effective carrying out the governor's agenda for FAMU.Since he first received his appointment to FAMU's board in 2011, Montgomery has fallen flat in his efforts to get respect from most of the other trustees. He turned off a number of board members during his first months by bragging about how politically important he thinks he is. That mistake cost him big when it came time for him to deliver on the task of suspending Ammons. He only got Bill Jennings and Charles Langston to vocally support his motion to oust the president.
Seven days after Montgomery dropped the ball, Scott finally went public to show that he was the real leader behind the push to remove Ammons from office.
Scott’s strategy of using the media to put pressure on FAMU trustees showed just how poorly Montgomery has advised him. Montgomery did not prepare the governor to deal with the fact that the majority of FAMU’s student body supports Ammons. Scott was caught completely off guard by a student protest that he should have known would happen if he tried to get Ammons to step down. He also seemed surprised by the angry responses from the FAMU National Alumni Association and Florida Legislative Black Caucus.
The governor was equally unprepared for the warning letter he received from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). If Montgomery was a half-way competent advisor, he would have informed Scott that political interference with the FAMU board would be a possible violation of national accreditation standards.
Newspapers all across the country picked up the wire headlines about the scolding Scott took from SACS. The Orlando Sentinel, Florida’s second largest newspaper, called his actions against FAMU “ham-handed” and criticized him for sticking “his gubernatorial nose where it didn’t belong.”
Maybe Scott needs to take a closer look at who Montgomery is really trying to help. With all of the bad publicity the governor has received as a result of Montgomery’s ineffectiveness, it might be time to ask if Montgomery is secretly working for the Florida Democratic Party.