Right Wing Succeeds In Campaign To Bring Down Progressive College President

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/12/nichol-william-mary

Right Wing Succeeds In Campaign To Bring Down Progressive College President



Gene Nichol, the President of the College and William and Mary, resigned today in protest of a politically-motivated decision by the College’s Board of Visitors not to renew his contract. Michelle Malkin and other conservative commentators have seized on his resignation as “victory” and inaccurately characterized his departure as “disgraced.” The reality is quite different.

Nichol’s tenure aroused significant outcry among conservative lawmakers in Richmond, VA and conservative political operatives in Washington, DC. These external voices objected to Nichol’s presidency for two superficial and unfounded reasons:

1) Nichol’s decision to remove a Christian Cross from permanent display from in the College’s non-denominational Wren Chapel.


2) Nichol refused to bar a student-funded and run organization from hosting the “Sex Workers Art Show.”


It’s unclear what truly motivated the attacks on Nichol. His efforts to diversify the College economically and ethnically — and his past as a Democratic candidate for Senate in 1996 — have roiled some conservatives outside of campus. Yet Nichol has enjoyed strong support among students, many of whom can be seen across campus sporting “I Nichol” pins attached to their bags and “Renew Nichol” stickers on their notebooks. Others are wearing t-shirts declaring, “If President Nichol’s Not Welcome Here Than Neither Am I.”

Despite this support, the Board of Visitors headed by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell voted — in secret — against renewing Nichol’s contract. Further, the board offered — and Nichol refused to accept — “substantial economic incentives if would agree ‘not to characterize as based on ideological grounds’ or make any other statement about departure without their approval.” In unsuccessfully attempting to buy Nichol’s silence, the Board ensured that Nichol’s departure would indeed be remembered ever more vividly as a disgrace. The real disgrace, however, belongs to the Board, not Nichol.

Read Nichol’s resignation letter in its entirety HERE. (AT LINK ABOVE)

And what the renaissance man he seems to be.

Gene Nichol is my president, and I am PISSED. :grr: This kind of bullshit is not what W&M is about at all. x(