COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON BATTLE LINES ARE BEING DRAWN …
South Carolina lieutenant governor Glenn McConnell‘s six-figure, state-funded retirement plan has run into a Holy City-sized speed bump …
The incoming president of the College of Charleston is facing broad, deep and vocal opposition from students, faculty, alumni and donors at the school he hopes to lead.
And the worst could be yet to come …
The most visible form of disdain has been the mass student protests taking place on campus – demonstrations driven by anger over McConnell’s Confederate past.
“Everywhere you go in Charleston it’s all people are talking about,” one source close to the drama tells FITS. “The students seem determined – while the school’s trustees are dug in (behind McConnell). Connected college folks are rooting for an overthrow. I don’t think it’s going to die down anytime soon.”
Our source is correct …
Those familiar with the ongoing kerfuffle tell FITS the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – a far-left “civil rights” organization based in Montgomery, Alabama – is about to get involved in the fight against McConnell.
That’s a major development. Not only is the SPLC flush with cash (nearly $300 million according to its latest tax filings) – it has tentacles deep within the U.S. court system and the Justice Department of U.S. President Barack Obama.
In other words it’s the sort of adversary McConnell has to take very seriously.
For the record, we don’t think McConnell is a racist – and we didn’t oppose the College of Charleston’s decision to hire him on the basis of his, um, “colorful” past. We objected to McConnell’s hiring because we don’t believe politicians should be permitted to inherit jobs at the institutions they previously fund (and which their buddies continue to fund).
Such a process is inherently corrupt – and we saw that corruption at work during the debate over McConnell’s selection.
We also object to McConnell’s goal of turning the College of Charleston into another “research University,” which as we’ve noted in the past is code language for wasting tens of millions of tax dollars on speculative “economic development” deals that weren’t sufficiently promising to receive private funding.
In other words race has very little to do with our contempt for McConnell …
Also, we suspect McConnell will trot out an army of Lowcountry black leaders to counter whatever moves the SPLC makes against him – which could help him frame the organization’s campaign as politically motivated, not based in a genuine desire to advance racial kumbaya.
He can also continue to count on receiving support – and cover with the black community – from longtime Charleston, S.C. mayor (and friend of Obama) Joe Riley.
If McConnell can somehow rally sufficient homegrown black support – and successfully portray the SPLC as agenda-driven outside agitators – he may have a chance.
One thing is clear, though … the Ides of March may have passed, but the Ides of McConnell are just beginning.
84 comments
I disagree.Indeed, it for all intents and purposes it is about over.
Oh maybe the fifty of so kids demonstrating can keep it going a couple of more weeks,but spring is coming and few college kids are going to spend many more days yakking about a fait accompli
As to the SPLC they issued a condemnatory statement.So?Exactly what else can they do?And what would be the Justice Depts.role here?What laws were broken?One can argue it was bad public policy,as you apparently do,and lots of people may agree with that,but Ive heard NO allegation from the protestors, SPLC ,the donors or anyone else that any laws were broken.
This whole article is one big stretch.Oppose McConnells selection if you like,but to insinuate that all sorts of nefarious forces are coalescing to do anything about it,besides a few dozen kids carrying some signs is preposterous.
Exactly.
The students have no power, as they are about to find out. McConnell was hired so that he can shake the Columbia money tree, which he will no doubt do, and to devise an acceptable ‘merger’ with MUSC. Neither of those things is a bad thing necessarily. The college, the city and the state will be better off in the long run if he is successful.
He was hired because he thought it would be neat to be a college president. He used every resource at his disposal to get the position, asking his buddies in state government to pressure trustees into caving and ignoring the recommendations of the university search committee. His appointment has no legitimacy.
“Face”, using his ESP powers, knows exactly what thoughts were/are in McConnell’s mind. Lets see, McConnell was selected by the school’s BOT but that is not “legitimate”? Now we know what is in face’s mind….nothing of substance.
Get it through your moronic brain: The university assembled a search committee for a new president. Those charged with conducting the search for a new president did not recommended him for the position. They did not recommend him as a finalist for the position. He has no academic credentials. He was installed through political pressure placed on trustees. Got it?
He was hired as fundraiser-in-chief and to guide the merger with MUSC, that’s it. He’s old, he will accomplish his goals and be out in five years.
Precisely
Hope he knows a lot of Confederate sympathizers. Who else would give him money?
The legislature.
Who is he going to raise funds from? He’s controversial. Most college presidents who get mired in controversy resign, in part because their controversy hurts fund-raising. McConnell does the neat trick of starting his tenure already mired.
Unless you mean “fund-raising” from his buddies in the statehouse. I suppose that’s how Good Old Boy politics work. You give our boy the cushy job and we’ll send a little taxpayer money your way.
He’s very adept at getting state monies for his pet project. I’m sure he still knows how to manipulate the system, between that and the “Charleston Old Money” that keep him in power he will do just fine as a fundraiser.
and that changes the fact that it is the BOT’s call how? So tell me again how that is not legitimate.
There is nothing illegitimate about it.Hell,the BOT could have elected anyone they wanted at any time they wanted.Bad public policy?Maybe,but illegitimate?No
Because the Board of Trustees did not act independently. They are anything but “trustees.”
Venture outside you academic cloister into the REAL world. Those in charge (read BOT) get to make the final decision based on whatever criteria they choose. Its that simple. If you are a student or employee (which is what the faculty is) and don’t like the decision, then leave.
No, you leave.
Put down your crack pipe. I am neither a student, employee or alum of CofC, so it would be difficult for me to leave.
You are a god damn asswipe. Go suck your own two incher.
Oh on what an intellectual plane that you have placed your input to the discussion.
Many college presidents do not have an academic backgrounds, including a number of past C of C ones.
A college president is a rainmaker more than anything else. McConnell can do that. Live in the real world, not the theoretical one.
“He used every resource at his disposal to get the position….
“What would you have had him do in order to secure his goal of becoming President? Recommend and lobby for the other candidates?
No, I would tell him he is unqualified to be a university or college president and ask him to consider doing something in which he does not have to call in political favors to circumvent an otherwise legitimate process.
I remember one professor told McConnell he would cause a wound just by coming to C of C. That professor was right. Getting a little extra funding from the state will repair the wound his controversy has done to the college’s reputation.
Errr.. won’t repair the wound
Professor equals employee. Nice way to talk to your new boss.
Oh no! Someone dared speak their mind to the boss man. Hurry over and lick McConnell’s boots until he feels powerful again!
the College of Charleston has a reputation?
Yep, drug distribution center Atlantic Seaboard.
How stupid you are. Tuition money is needed to run the school. Stay tuned for the destruction of the C of C.
“As to the SPLC they issued a condemnatory statement.So?Exactly what else can they do?”
They can do SOMETHING! With those “tentacles.”
If Leftwing radicals are able to oust this man, it will damage CoC substantially.
W/o McConnell, CoC invoked MUST READ Gay propaganda literature….paying a KICKBACK, w/ taxpayer funds, to the book’s creators. The legislature caught the corrupt leadership and slapped their hands…
The pre-McConnell leadership is NOT the kind of people most responsible parents want indoctrinating the minds of their precious children…
So sit down and shut…you LOST!!!!
You forgot to diss Sic. You’re slipping, GrandTurdo.
You forgot to suck him off…you brain-dead sycophant….
A reminder to you, today is SUNDAY!
True Christians are not defined by conveniently pious liberal judges, who use manufactured language standards to try to manipulate the people you hate…
I am forwarding that comment to Satan for interpretation.
I understand he’s not taking Damned Tango’s calls.
The word on the street is that “Our Father” is starting a new 5-H organization. It’s to be named “How to Halt the Haranguing of Hypothetical Humans.
I’ve often thought that Christianity is defined more by the readiness to believe in a cloven hoofed serpent with a red suit, distended belly, trident and pointed tail, than the bodily resurrection of Christ.
True Christians are not defined by conveniently pious liberal judges
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It is not what goes in a person’s mouth, but what comes out of it that makes him unclean…. oh, like dick-sucking metaphors..
dick sucking metaphors is a manufactured language, by the way.
Thanks for the reminder, GT! It would be a damn shame if someone wasn’t hear to get us to put cocks in our mouth.
…on Sunday.
Get it RIGHT!
It’s $#ck, not suck. You are slipping.
Are you helping Damned Tango to manufacture a language?
“The pre-McConnell leadership is NOT the kind of people most responsible parents want indoctrinating the minds of their precious children…”
Lol! They’re young adults; they’ll make up their own minds, Shithead Tango.
Yep! They can also fuck your brains out!!
That’s good news for Damned Tango – he can get in that short line, not having found a gainful use for any.
Really: Most liberal arts colleges are bastions of the open mind. You ignorant and uneducated dip$#!*…We HAVE TO be able to trust adults to try and put educational, not gay propaganda, in those minds…like FILTHLY Pieces of $#!* like you dine on…
And If it is such a natural lifestyle…why do you F*#king idiots try to PUSH it on everybody…???…and subsidize homosexual authors w/ gov’t kickbacks…???
Really: You don’t think these kids already have gay friends and opinions about homosexuals?
Damned Tango is an old-fashioned homosexual – he’s ashamed of his desires.
Trying to find a consistent thread of logic in the GrandTindora’s post is confusing, sort of like…….
——————————————————–
Three guys and a girl are marooned on a desert island.
After one week, the girl is so ashamed of what she’s doing, she kills herself.
After another week, the guys are so ashamed of what they’re doing, they bury her.
After another week, they’re so ashamed of what they’re doing, they dig her up again.
See? The guy who came up with that joke should run for office! Why do we suffer fools instead?
I wonder if your Ignorant @$$ would be so “open-minded” if the kids were REQUIRED to read The Bible…???..I think we KNOW the answer to that…
PS: If they all those gays friends, why MAKE them read a book promoting anti-Christian Gay values???
FBI Dumps Southern Poverty Law Center
http://electionlawcenter.com/2014/03/26/fbi-dumps-southern-poverty-law-center.aspx
Jenny Sanford eying the CofC position….McConnell making the claim…..Haley/legislature cementing McConnelll’s claim through media slaves and BOT appointees…..BOT pulling a fast one on all of us by picking 3 finalists that were’nt even in the top 10 list….legislators, city leaders, news papers, connected local businesses finally deciding the outcome and now trying to shove it down our throats as ‘legitimate appointment’….who thinks the process has been fair for the rest of the job applicants?? Maybe our higher education gurus around the country should take a look at what happened at CofC and decide for themselves if this is the kind of cheap process we are willing to tolerate, or represent our higher education values.
McConnell was hired to be the fundraiser-in-chief and to “guide” the merger of CofC with MUSC. He’s obviously good a fundraising and “guiding” as evidenced by thirty plus years in South Carolina politics. I wasn’t keen on him as president, since I have a niece that will be attending the honors program at CofC in the fall. With that said, if the SPLC is against his appointment I may need to change my stance, and thing they are against can’t be all bad.
Come mid-May, ninety-nine percent of the students will go home for the summer, followed in mid-July by McConnell’s takeover. There will be no protest because there will be no protesters.
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The students have mobilized very few non-students.
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Of the students there now, twenty-five percent will disappear (viz., graduate) in mid-May.
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Of the faculty, I recall counting six or seven out of four hundred fifty plus who had the courage / nerve / character to actually speak up or write publicly expressing their opposition to this monster.
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I do believe the 34,2 percent of out-of-state student ratio (see https://cofc.edu/about/ataglance/index.php) will drop, and this will hurt the college (annual budget around $225 million) by the tens of millions.
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Surprisingly, donations from alumni,etc. are very small: $5.7 million in 2012, so their lack of support is meaningless.
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The major multi-million-dollar hit (my guess, $15 million annually loss from out-of-state falloff) will be made up by legislative sycophants — that is, you and me.
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That is, unless and until the legislators realize McConnell no longer wields political power, can and should be ignored. THEN the “McConnell makeup money” will dry up and the college along with it.
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Serves them well. They deserve themselves. Shoot, Aim, Ready . . . McConnell will laugh all the way to the bank. For, I suppose, what, 10 year contract? 15 year contract?
Wow. You took the time to put actual facts and citations in your post. And you’re not a McConnell supporter. Hmmm…
What is Robert Ford doing these days? I sure he has some time on his hands to help his old friend, Glenn.
You forgot to mention the obstructionist Senate he presided over for since 2001. A lost decade mired in the mud of egotism over meaningful reforms. Senate Pro Tempore Courson has accomplished more in two years than McConnell has in ten. I will say it again, I despise him for giving material support and leading the obstructionists for ten years.
Honestly, the SPLC getting involved doesn’t sound like a big deal except to spread the word in the national media. What will really make C of C pay attention is if the alumni groups get involved. The student protesters say their next move is to ask for support from the alumni, so stay tuned.
This whole thing feels like a backroom deal with more than one angle. That’s what Sic should be investigating. Who gets what out of this? I think Leon Stavrinakis is getting support for his run for Charleston mayor. There was some talk of Jean Toal and Nikki Haley getting something. What I’m worried about is who benefits from the MUSC-C of C merger. There is a lot being pushed down the throats of the people here in Charleston. The Good Old Boys must be benefiting from it. Put your ear to the ground, Sic, and find out the rest of the angles (even if it’s all hearsay as usual).
Honestly, the SPLC getting involved doesn’t sound like a big deal except to spread the word in the national media.
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Their influence is waning now hat the FBI has dropped them as a resource.
Face, wake up and realize that the fat lady has already sung. Go back to whatever subjects you teach. You are way out of your league in the world of politics.
Just like the Citadel would never admit females. I’m old enough to remember when we were told by the Good Old Boys that would never happen.
FYI, I’m not a teacher, but I’ll take it as a compliment that you think I am.
The College of Charleston has no Board of Trustees. They were told how to vote, they did it, and now McConnell will never have to listen to or consult them again. He has demonstrated HE has the power, not them. Just like the “board” over DHEC who got told who will be the director, they might as well pack it in, never meet again, and resign. They have been totally neutered and trumped. Game over.
Or the DOT board who were told by Grooms and Harrell that they couldn’t go ahead with their planned vote to kill funding for the I-526 extension.
More and more students are rising up against McConnell and the boards decision. Now there is also talk of hundreds of student pulling out and transferring elsewhere. This will severely damage the C of C. The students will prevail in this battle. I can assure you of that. They are becoming more and more organized. And there is no stopping them now.
I don’t blame you for being angry. I’d hate to go on a job search thinking that my potential employer thinks I’m some Johnny Reb type because I went to C of C.
Pffft. Don’t kid yourself, slick.
As you have correctly said, there is “talk”. That is all it is. Mom and Dad pay your bills and you know it. Remember the golden rule. Those with the gold, rule.
The inmates don’t run the asylum. Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you.
ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN about to report on this story.
Sure they are. I think I saw them setting up downtown so they can do all the morning shows live from the Cistern.
I still never got how doing Civil War reenactments made/makes him a racist? People all over the East Coast do this (even North of the mason-dixon line). Can anyone explained this to me? Im a dem, not a McConnell fan, and a huge history buff, and just dont understand this defacto “he is a racist” because he is a civil war enthusiast???
I wouldn’t call him a racist, although I would guess he does wish he was living in the antebellum South, the issue of slavery notwithstanding.
Which is to say he probably wishes there was still a pure patriarchy, as opposed to an existing but compromised patriarchy.
But still not a racist tho…people just want him to be one by proxy. I liked the SPLC – and cannot believe they would have a reason to come into this or even consider being a part of it.
“I liked the SPLC – and cannot believe they would have a reason to come into this or even consider being a part of it.”
They are nothing more than an establishment endorsed hate group. You’ve been hoodwinked.
They rise to the level of poverty pimps ideologically, like that of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc.
They supply the red meat for the Leftists and establishment players without any trappings of reality.
Hell, son, if there were no slavery and penicillin, I’d like to live in the Ante Bellum South. Rustica nec sinit ripis!
Pardon me “facts are hell”… I was there you, so allow me to make you privvy to this FACT: HUNDREDS (not dozens) of students were there. If you were there you would have seen. Next time we rally, come out and see it for yourself. :P
Let me point out a fact for you. “The inmates don’t run the asylum.” If you don’t like the new president that much, leave. Take your higher education dollars to another institution.
The SPLC is hardly an impartial resource. It is a private fundraising organization, self-appointed and subject to no external oversight or review, least of all from the media. The SPLC took in $37 million in tax-free donations last year, on top of the $35 million in tax-free interest generated by its $280 million dollar cash endowment.
http://wp.me/pCLYZ-k0
Obviously, the SPLC has a huge financial incentive to tailor its “reports” to suit
the tastes of its donor base. How could anyone expect them to be a neutral player?
There is no legal definition for “hate group,” which is why even the FBI does not, cannot, designate “hate groups,” but somehow a private fundraising group can?
As for being champions of LGBT rights, the SPLC didn’t designate its first “anti-LGBT hate group” until 2011, forty years after opening for business. When the Boy Scouts of America announced in 2000 that it would actively discriminate against gay scouts and scout leaders, the SPLC said nothing. Finally, in 2011, SPLC co-founder Joe Levin wrote that the only response his group made was to stop donating to the local United Way and to say nothing about it.
Civil rights advocacy doesn’t come much more hard-hitting than that. Even then, Levin actually apologized for the BSA’s blatant discrimination, saying “The BSA doesn’t intend to promote bigotry.”
http://wp.me/pCLYZ-js
Why did the SPLC turn a blind eye to the BSA’s anti-gay discrimination for more than a decade? Because many of the SPLC’s donors were scouts, or the parents/grandparents of scouts, and linking the almighty donors to a “hate group” is bad for business.
“Fighting hate” is all well and good, until it cuts into the bottom line. Some “experts”
He still will not be invited to the St. Cecilia Ball.
Does anyone seriously think that the College of Charleston is anything more than a festering bubo on the buttox of the State? They are sufficient in some education areas and have a pretty good baseball team. Most of the faculty are Marx wannabes – and there is an ongoing argument as to whether it’s Groucho or Karl. It is not what it used to be, even as few years ago as the 70’s.
As for the NCAA, NAACP, SPLC, and the battle flag, the entire issue is phony. Besides, we have the perfect flag of secession as our state flag.
I’d say “..the Ides of [McConnell] have come, but they are not yet gone.”