The chairman of the university system’s governing board is asking Florida A&M University to reconsider a decision to allow its anti-hazing committee to meet in private.
Dean Colson, chairman of the Florida Board of Governors, issued a letter late Thursday asking the FAMU board of trustees to look at the matter again.
“Further, the need for transparency is particularly heightened in this situation because hazing is an activity normally conducted under a cloak of secrecy, and — rightly or wrongly — the university has been accused of failing to take sufficient action to prevent and/or respond to well-chronicled hazing-related activities,” Colson wrote to FAMU Board Chairman Solomon Badger.
FAMU officials decided earlier this month to change the hazing panel from an “advisory body,” which has to hold open meetings, to a “fact-finding body,” which does not.
Gov. Rick Scott has also criticized the decision.
Colson’s letter comes in the wake of new allegations growing out of an investigation into the hazing death of drum major Robert Champion in November.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating Champion’s death, which was ruled a homicide by Orange County medical examiners.
Allegations surfaced earlier this week that two faculty members were on hand for a different hazing incident at one of the faculty member’s homes in 2010.
