Current Release: September 11th, 2007 | Vol. XXIV Iss. 10

Photo Courtesy google images

William & Mary president resigns

Ben Giles

brgiles1@vwc.ewdu

In the wake of the resignation of William & Mary president Gene Nichol, the campus has been consumed by a tangled web of “he said, she said” rhetoric.

Did the school choose not to keep Nichol for financial reasons, or was it over a clash of ideals and fundamentals?

Did the college offer Nichol and his family a significant sum to keep his mouth shut concerning angry disagreements, or simply to ease the transition process as the school searches for a new president?

And what does all this mess have to do with a cross and a stripper?

The basics are certain: Nichol was as controversial a president as W&M has ever had. He took down a cross displayed in a public chapel on campus to help promote religious tolerance. The decision was reversed, following pressure from campus officials. For two consecutive years, he allowed student organizers to host a Sex Workers Art Show, widely criticized by some faculty and donors. And less than a week after the show was held, the school informed Nichol they didn’t want him back when his contract was up.

Now the school is desperate to try and fix a public relations nightmare. Their timing, right after the overwhelming popular student-run show, couldn’t have been worse. The campus organized sit-ins and rallies demanding the school give substantial reason for effectively releasing Nichol beyond the grounds of disagreement about character.

To make matters worse, allegations by Nichol that the school offered him money “not to characterize [the non-renewal decision] as based on ideological grounds,” released the day of Nichol’s resignation, shed even worse light on the administration and provided fodder for an angry student body.

Recently the school has adamantly stated the decision to release Nichol had nothing to do with his “ideological” record. According to the Board of Visitors, made up of the donors who backed Nichol during his controversial decisions, “management style, administrative follow-through and efforts to secure the financial future of the College” were all areas in which the former president lacked skill.

The school, the administration argued, would have continued to suffer with Nichol at the helm.

Words are cheap. The school can say whatever it wants, but thanks to media buzz created by Nichol’s actions and the unintelligent timing of their announcement, they may never ease students concern over what some view as a symbolic infringement of first Amendment rights. The students feel their voice is being censored. Even some faculty fear the possibility of a too-powerful school board.

Any statements saying the board was unified in its decision could be ignored once information was released stating a board member resigned over the matter, showing that there are clearly dissenting opinions within the school’s higher-ups, not just between the school and its president.

Of course, there’s the matter of the “bribe” money. There’s no real way to put it other than that.

The school attempted to pay Nichol to shut up and leave in quiet dignity. Clearly, they didn’t take the time to get to know the man who uprooted the cross and replaced it with a dildo.

If the school had wanted to “ease the transition” for poor old Nichol, they could have given him a severance package. That’s what normal companies would do. Payments like the suggested ones feels more like dirty money, and Nichol had all the reason he needed to do the exact opposite of what the school had hoped for: he blabbed.

Nichol’s was only doing what he had defended his entire time at the school. He let his voice be heard in the same way he let the Sex Workers’ seductive tones ring through the college and the voices of a multitude of different religions express themselves freely.

Nichol’s good character should be applauded.

Maybe the school should have fired its PR people instead.