The tension between Rufus and Mangum has increased in the
weeks after the lawmakers took their concerns to the BOG. The latest clash took place on August 17 when
Mangum accused Rufus of violating her “employee rights according to University
Regulation 10.103(3b) -Nondiscrimination Policy and Harassment Procedures.” She
later told the Florida Times-Union that she thought Rufus was working toward
the goal of firing her.
But BOG Chancellor Marshall Criser and BOG member Matthew
Carter both downplayed the seriousness of the problems that Rufus and Mangum
have with each other in statements to the media this week. Criser brushed off the issue by saying that it was “noise
around the edges.” Carter told a reporter that “I don’t think the relationship
is broken.”
A relationship between a president and a BOT chairman can’t get any more broken than when the president says she thinks the chairman is violating her employee rights and is trying to fire her.
Neither Criser nor Carter claimed to speak for the full BOG.
But their statements are still very telling because Criser and Carter mainly just follow the lead of most of the BOG members. They wouldn’t have the
courage to say anything that they thought would put them at odds with the
majority of the BOG membership.
Carter went as far as to make sarcastic statements about
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and the FAMU alumni lawmakers who called for
Rufus to be removed as the FAMU BOT chairman on August 20. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, he
said that “the mayor should be reducing my taxes in Tallahassee, and let the
people with responsibility for leading FAMU lead FAMU.” The article added that:
“He also said the legislators should have been focusing their attention on
redistricting maps, an urgent matter for the state.”
An article by the News Service of Florida reported that: “As
to the role of the state university system in the FAMU leadership dispute,
Carter said he didn’t think mediation by the Board of Governors was necessary.”
The statements by Criser and Carter suggest that Mangum
isn’t going to receive any help from the BOG any time soon.
The BOG recently gave a negative response to the Work Plan
that Mangum presented to it told her to make big changes to the plan before its
September meeting. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, “[Montgomery] said
he’d had a conversation with the chairman of the Board of Governors who said he
was surprised trustees hadn’t expressed more concern over a university Work
Plan that Mangum had presented recently to the board.”
The BOG appears to be encouraging the FAMU Board of Trustees
to be more critical of Mangum in the area of strategic planning. Carter hinted
at the FAMU Work Plan issue in his criticism of Gillum and the FAMU alumni
lawmakers who want Rufus out of the chairmanship.
“I thought it was inappropriate at a time when the
university is trying to get its sea legs. The Board of Governors is looking at
performance metrics, not personalities,” Carter told the Tallahassee Democrat.
All that is likely to come from the BOG review of the
controversy between Mangum and the Board of Trustees is a bland statement that
asks everyone at FAMU to try and do a better job of working together. The BOG
isn’t going to start a battle with Gov. Rick Scott to pressure him to replace
the trustees who are giving Mangum a hard time. That would only come back to
bite the individual BOG members when it’s time for Scott to make a decision on
whether to reappoint them.