W&M Board member resigns in protest, says Board to dismantle Nichol’s policies

The carefully-constructed narrative spun by social conservative critics of ousted William & Mary President Gene Nichol is beginning to fall apart.  Nichol’s opponents argue that the decision was performance-based, not ideological, the unanimous decision of a Board of Visitors comprised almost wholly of Democrats with no intention of dismantling the controversial decisions of the former President.  It now appears that very little of that story is true.  Board of Visitors member Robert Blair has announced his resignation from the Board, and says that the decision was not unanimous and that the Board will not keep Nichol’s policies in place.

After much soul searching, and input from my family and from alumni I respect, I will tender my resignation tomorrow from the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary to the Honorable Timothy M. Kaine, Governor of Virginia.

I was one of several members of the Board who argued forcefully for the renewal of Gene Nichol’s contract as President of the College. Although no vote was taken, one was not required if the contract was not to be renewed. Those for renewal were given ample opportunity to argue their points. We ultimately found ourselves in the minority.

I was confident at the time that most of those speaking for non-renewal based their positions on non-ideological grounds and without animus towards Mr. Nichol.

Given that no vote was to be taken, the decision cannot be said to have been unanimous in any sense of the word.  Once it became clear that a majority of the Board wanted to get rid of the President, Nichols’ supporters gave up, comforted by the belief that the Board would keep Nichol’s policies in place.  Nichol would suffer, to be sure, but perhaps the students of the College would not.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be true either.

Suffice it to say that dozens of our incredibly talented students (and others) called me both before and after the Board’s decision, pouring out their hearts with love and admiration for President Nichol and the College. After President Nichol’s resignation, I was initially reassured by public statements of Board Rector Michael Powell and other members of the Board of Visitors that the Board would not change the policies put in place by Mr. Nichol, including that dealing with the Wren Chapel Cross. Based in good measure on such statements, I tried to calm the fears of President Nichol’s ardent supporters and assure them that while they mourn his loss, the important policies he put in place would remain. I strongly encouraged their continued commitment to the College.

Why then am I resigning from the Board at this juncture? Because there has been an incipient effort by some members of the Board of Visitors to pick apart President Nichol’s accomplishments. To what end? They gained their stated objective. I have also seen mean-spirited communications that are not worthy of the professional deliberations of any managing board, but most especially not the Board of Visitors of William and Mary. Such communications call into question the real motivation for the initial decision not to renew the President’s contract.

I know the reasoned reactions, as well as the emotional ones, of Board members are in response to the President’s message of February 12th to the William and Mary Community. Would I have refrained from some of what Mr. Nichol said? Certainly, but then I knew more than he. Several of us Board members are actually baffled by the surprise of other Board members regarding the content of the President’s message. President Nichol is a proud, intelligent and charismatic leader and visionary who demonstrated his love for the College in many ways while being under relentless, vicious attack since the Wren Cross decision. That he held his tongue for so long is remarkable.

That members of the Board would already be dismantling the policies of the former President, less than two weeks after he was ousted and before the ink on the Rector’s press release naming an interim president was even dry, demonstrates clearly the real motivation here.  This was not, as is claimed, a practical decision by a unanimous and impartial governing body to replace an ineffective administrator.  This was a decision by a faction of the Board acting under the duress imposed by members being called before a General Assembly grand inquisition, a capitulation to conservative critics who disagree with Nichol and Blair that “William and Mary is not a private, religious school. It is a public university that must be open to all who qualify for admissions based upon academic achievement and other accomplishments.”

Blair closes with a message to the remaining members of the Board, a statement more judicious than Nichol’s February 12 e-mail but no less forceful:

My conscience now tells me it is time to move on. And I am. I hope my leaving will give Rector Powell and the Board pause, and cause them to follow Thomas Jefferson’s advice contained his letter to John Tyler in 1804: to open the doors of truth and test their necessary deliberations by reason. I hope the Board will conduct those deliberations in a professional and civil manner worthy of our venerable institution and will defend their decision (as they are being asked to do by the faculty and students for whom the College and the Board exist) in a similar fashion.

One hopes they take this message to heart, but one despairs at the unlikelihood that they will do so.