The Florida Board of Governors (BOG) and Rufus Montgomery, Gov.
Rick Scott’s go-to trustee at FAMU, both jumped on Julian E. White’s bandwagon
shortly after the university announced his termination on November 23. They seemed
to think that he could give them enough fire power to finally take down FAMU
President James H. Ammons. The ex-band director had a large number of FAMU
supporters who wanted revenge on the senior administration that fired him.
White gained some momentum early on when the CBS Evening
News and other media organizations gave him a soap box to use against his
former boss. He looked even stronger when Willie Gary signed on as his
co-counsel. But the recent bombshells about misconduct and suspected financial
mismanagement inside the program he led were just too much for White or his
followers to explain away.
The BOG and Rufus now have to draw up a new plan
to try and rally Rattlers against Ammons. White is no longer in any position to
help them.
On Nov. 29, then-BOG Chairwoman Ava Parker sent FAMU a letter stating
that the board was going to investigate White’s allegations that "he received
little support despite repeatedly advising current and former university
administrators of hazing activities within the Marching 100 band." It did not
specifically mention any intent to examine Ammons’ claim about a lack of
competence on White’s part.
Scott made no effort to criticize the one-sided focus of the
BOG investigation. Rather than call for a fair investigation into the
disagreement between Ammons and White, his office said that it wanted the
governor’s inspector general and the BOG inspector general to work together to
review FAMU’s hazing problem.
Rufus expressed anger at a Dec. 8 Board of Trustees meeting about
how White was instructed to clear out his desk. He used it as one of the
justifications behind his unsuccessful motion to suspend Ammons. 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. The "suspend
Ammons" campaign broke down after the Southern Association of Colleges and
Schools scolded Scott for jeopardizing FAMU’s accreditation.
The Dec. 8 Board of Trustees turned out to be the high point
for those who thought White’s allegations could bring an end to the Ammons
administration. White’s claim that he did all he could to stop hazing ultimately
failed to withstand media scrutiny.
Many FAMUans could not believe their ears when White told
ESPN that he’d never heard of the "Crossing Bus C" ritual before Nov. 19, 2011.
Another embarrassment came when two Marching 100 staffers resigned after
being linked a hazing incident involving the university’s Kappa Kappa Psi
chapter.
By the time Ammons reported that 101 ineligible
individuals were on White’s Fall 2012 roster, the writing was on the wall. White finally stopped fighting and resigned.
The bias that the BOG and Scott's top crony on the FAMU board displayed by siding
with White before all the facts were even known shows that they were never
objective and were never committed to finding the truth.