Florida A&M University trustees voted overwhelmingly Friday to force members of an anti-hazing committee to meet in public, despite warnings from the committee’s chairman that the move would likely cause most of the committee’s members to resign.
The 8-2 vote by trustees, who had earlier endorsed changing the committee from an advisory panel to a “fact-finding” body to allow it to meet in private, came after Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Board of Governors Chairman Dean Colson both called on university officials to reconsider.
The trustees suggested that public perception of the original decision and the desire to have the committee issue recommendations at the end of the process played into the new vote. But Stephen Robinson, a former federal judge chairing the panel, said that would make it impossible for several members to participate in the meetings.
Robinson said members of the committee are spread out from Florida to Maine and need to be able to decide quickly to talk on the phone or exchange emails without noticing meetings and making sure the public could attend. Otherwise, he said it would be nearly impossible for the committee to meet the board’s goal of having recommendations before students return to the university in the fall.
“The committee members must be allowed to communicate whenever and wherever they can find the convenient time to do so,” Robinson said before the board vote.
At least five of the committee’s seven members, including Robinson, would likely have to resign if they were forced to hold open meetings, he said.
Belinda Shannon, the trustee who serves as the board’s contact with the committee, said the panel’s initial recommendation that it meet privately was misconstrued.
“They do not wish to operate in secrecy,” she said. “To suggest that the committee was acting so as to dodge the Sunshine Law is not only misinformed, but it’s unfair to the dedicated men and women who have agreed to serve on this committee.”
But other board members pushed ahead to make the panel’s meetings public, and at least one seemed offended by Robinson’s suggestion that the committee might quit.
“Go ahead and resign,” retorted trustee Rufus Montgomery. “But I don’t think as a board we should be held hostage under the threat of resignation of anyone.”
The public rift between the trustees and the committee it set up to draft strategies for dealing with hazing at the institution comes as the university continues to grapple with the death of drum major Robert Champion, who was killed in November.
Champion died after a hazing tied to the historically black college’s famed “Marching 100” band; his death has been ruled a homicide by Orange County medical examiners and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has launched an investigation.
By Brandon Larrabee
