Florida A&M University’s efforts to stop hazing after the November death of drum major Robert Champion have encountered another roadblock as two members of its anti-hazing committee – including the chairman, a former federal judge – have resigned amid predictions that more members will follow.
The dispute concerns whether the committee should have changed its mission from that of advisors to the board of trustees, which would require compliance with Florida’s Sunshine Laws, to that of a fact-finding panel, which would not.
Former U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson, chairman of the seven-member anti-hazing committee established to help FAMU respond to Champion’s death, had warned trustees at a March 30 emergency meeting that having to give notice of their activities would likely result in the loss of five members.
The group initially was created as a panel that would have been required to meet in the open, but at its inaugural meeting, the trustees agreed to let the group have a fact-finding mission – no longer bound by the Sunshine Law.
Gov. Rick Scott then said the group should operate more transparently and the trustees reversed the earlier decision and required the more open configuration. But at that meeting, several members of the panel said it would be too difficult, and some said they’d probably quit.
Resigning with Robinson: Dr. Na’im Akbar, a clinical psychologist based in Tallahassee.
“The time restraints further imbued the assignment with toxic implications that we would be the sacrificial lambs in this complex public relations nightmare,” wrote Akbar in his Apr. 4 resignation letter.
Robinson wrote that his resignation was influenced by trustee Rufus Montgomery, who had compared the committee’s position to “a child not getting their way and saying I’m going to take my toys and go home.”
Those remarks were “churlish in the extreme,” Robinson wrote in his resignation letter.
