<p>The University of Virginia Board of Visitors is an interesting case study. Many of the reasons behind the events in 2012 remain undisclosed. The popular President of UVa was told to resign by 3 boardmembers, who said that the votes had been lined up to replace her if she didn’t immediately resign. There had never been a public vote, or even discussion about unhappiness with her performance. Massive uprisings then occurred over the next few weeks that involved large numbers of the faculty, students, alumni and many legislators. </p>
<p>At one point, the Board’s secretary wrote to the Boardmembers to assure them that she had not been editing out the public comments - that she would forward to them any alumni correspondence that favored the President’s removal - it was just that none of the thousands of comments had taken that position. </p>
<p>The faculty approved a vote of no-confidence with the Board. The Board then made a public vote to have her remain as President.</p>
<p>The politics of the whole event are unclear. The Boardmembers are all appointed by the Governor, even though the State provides only about 10% of the academic budget. Many of the boardmembers were very wealthy, including at least one billionaire, and there also were at least two billionaires who were working behind the scenes in the coup. </p>
<p>The current Governor is very conservative, but the leader of the board coup was a developer who called herself a Democrat and who was appointed because she was friends with Warner, who currently serves as a Democratic Senator. </p>
<p>Some people believe the events were partly caused by fights over Climate Change research. Michael Mann, a prominent climate change researcher, used to work at UVa. Climate change-deniers have accused Mann of falsifying data, although he has been cleared by three investigations by boards of scientists. The leading Republican conservative candidate for Governor, Cuccinelli, as Attorney General sued UVa seeking that they release all emails by Mann. UVa refused and their position was upheld in court. Meanwhile, the Environmental Sciences Dept of UVa was seeking to offer Mann a new endowed professorship, but the offer was stopped by someone at the top of UVa (apparently the Dean of Arts and Sciences). Some feared that offering a prominent role to Mann would have been viewed as a blatant poke in the eye against Cuccinelli and conservatives who control the State House. </p>
<p>One of the coup-leaders on the board and one of the billionaires had jointly funded that professorship, which actually makes this theory less probable. If they didn’t want Mann, they probably could have killed the idea before we ever knew about it. However, many of the coup-leaders had strong connections to Dominion Resources, a huge energy company based in Virginia that is a large consumer of coal.</p>
<p>A couple of the coup leaders resigned. However, the head of the board was re-appointed by the conservative Governor, right after this debacle occurred. Approximately one-third of the legislature then voted against her re-appointment, which is probably the largest negative vote ever for an appointee to a Virgina college board. Other members of the legislature felt that she needed to be re-appointed to show them lib’rils that they can’t control the University.</p>
<p>Another factor that makes this case study interesting is that so many of the powerbrokers and legislators in the state are graduates of UVa or its law school. The Washington Post reporter who had a key role in uncovering many of the facts also was a UVa alum and former editor of the student newspaper. Therefore, it generated much more attention than would have been the case with another college. </p>
<p>The lack of clothes on the emperors was made apparent because the student newspaper immediately filed Open Records requests for all emails by the boardmembers. Those emails seemed to show an obsession with online college courses, but no substantive discussion that would justify removal of an esteemed and popular President.</p>