Persaud stands on naivety, says no one on FAMU board plotted against Ammons

The Tallahassee Democrat and Associated Press both interviewed FAMU Faculty Senate President Narayan Persaud about what he knew prior to the resignation of University President James H. Ammons. Persaud wants FAMUans to accept his naïve belief that none of the 13 board members worked together to plot against Ammons.

Back on Wednesday morning of July 11, On Wednesday, Rattler Nation broke the news that certain members of the FAMU Board of Trustees were working secretly to gather enough votes to oust Ammons during the teleconference scheduled for that day.

The Tallahassee Democrat reported that Persaud “was not aware of a plan to terminate Ammons or to ask Ammons to resign during Wednesday’s meeting.”

But an Associated Press article written by Gary Fineout contains details that did not appear in the Democrat.

Fineout reported: “Board member Narayan Persaud, who is also president of the FAMU faculty senate, said it was ‘absolutely not’ true that board members were planning to vote to oust Ammons. He said a supporter of Ammons called him hours before the president resigned and suggested the possibility. Persaud said he told him it was ‘preposterous to think the trustees’ were talking to one another, in violation of state open government laws.”

The information in the Fineout article contains red flags about Persaud. The faculty senate president told Fineout that someone spoke to him prior to the meeting about a possible board plot to get rid Ammons, but the Democrat article says Persaud wasn’t aware that anything was being planned against the university president.  

The biggest problem is Persaud’s attempt to speak for the entire board. He thinks it’s “preposterous” to even entertain the thought that any FAMU trustee acted dishonestly or broke the Government-in-the-Sunshine Law.

Persaud isn’t with the other 12 trustees 24 hours a day and can’t claim speak for what they did or didn’t do. The faculty senate president isn’t part of the circle that is really running the show on the FAMU board. He is naïve to believe that the trustees who are closet to the Florida Governor’s Office respect him enough to let him (or any other FAMU faculty member) know about all the under-the-table scheming that is taking place.