McCormickgate: The Real Scandal
By Rudolph S. Rasin
The scandal involving Rutgers president Richard L. McCormick
has little to do with his "inappropriate" sexual relationship.
For that relationship, according to a report in the Seattle Times,
was only "the final straw in a series of disappointments
over McCormick's performance" as president. It was as such,
as the president of the UW Board of Regents admitted, that he
encouraged McCormick "to reconsider the opportunity at Rutgers."
The Rutgers Board of Governors, never questioning Dr. McCormick's
sudden change of heart and neglecting to conduct the thorough
investigation the situation so obviously demanded, took over
UW's problem.
Many alumni were reminded of the circumstances about which
insistent rumors circulated at the time the Board of Governors
selected McCormick's predecessor, Francis L. Lawrence. Eamon
Kelly, then president of Tulane, was said to have given Lawrence
one year to find a new position elsewhere. The Board of Governors
stepped into the breach, with one of its most powerful members
personally championing his candidacy.
Setting aside the question of how much truth there was
to these rumors, it's worth recalling now because the latest
news about President McCormick points to a similar scenario.
According to Seattle press reports, many of the reasons the UW
trustees wanted to get rid of Dr. McCormick had to do not only
with his performance but with a series of simmering athletic
scandals: the firing of football coach Rick Neuheisel in the
wake of a gambling episode, the NCAA's decision to put the UW
basketball program on probation for recruiting violations, the
recent investigation of a UW team physician for supplying players
with illegal steroids and lying about his medical credentials.
This was the same athletic program new President McCormick
proudly pointed to as the corruption-free model Rutgers would
follow under his administration. Yet no member of the Board of
Governors saw fit to ask any very searching questions about UW
athletics, either.
It is possible to see the major problem at Rutgers, in
short, as the latest in a series of failures in university governance.
Recognizing that governance was at the heart of the university's
decline in recent year, several fellow alumni and I met with
President McCormick last spring to discuss a White Paper we had
composed on the structure of university governance.
The White Paper documented the history and current status
of the system for selecting members of the Board of Governors
and proposed specific steps for addressing the structural flaws
in the system. Executive Summaries were shared with several current
and former board members.
That is why we are especially disheartened by the most
recent controversy surrounding McCormick's presidency. In the
light of recent events, prospects for bringing even the modest
changes in governance we have proposed are dim indeed. As with
their previous support of a badly compromised Francis Lawrence,
the Board of Governors, has now circled their wagons and taken
Richard McCormick into their protective fold.
McCormick is therefore in no position to exercise the kind
of independent judgment and principled leadership needed to initiate
a process of meaningful change. Instead, he finds himself deeply
in debt to individuals with very little grasp either of the issues
involved in this latest scandal or, more importantly, of the
academic and intellectual values that ought to be at the center
of Rutgers as an institution.
The real crisis at Rutgers has nothing to do with the legacy
of Francis Lawrence, the sexual peccadillos of Richard McCormick,
or even with the fact that Rutgers is fast gaining a reputation
as a dumping ground for administrators unwanted by other institutions.
It has to do with the process through which members are appointed
to the Board of Governors.
The citizens of New Jersey deserve better. They need, and
should demand, a Board of Governors made up of members of national
stature, men and women who have achieved genuine distinction
in a variety of fields, and who have the competence and breadth
of vision it will take to move Rutgers to take its place among
the top public institutions of higher learning in the country.
It was towards that goal that our White Paper was intended to
make a modest beginning.
There is a simple way of see where Rutgers stands today.
Should Richard McCormick resign tomorrow, it is this same Board
of Governors who would be the ones to choose the next president.
That, it seems to me, is an alarming prospect and the real problem
that urgently demands attention.
Copyright (c) Home News Tribune
2003
In
April 2004, the 
the distinguished alumni of the institution.