The president of Texas A&M University, M. Katherine Banks, resigned today after a public uproar over how badly the university botched an attempt to hire a prominent Black journalist to revive its journalism department. Banks has been president of Texas A&M for two years, during which she’s pissed off both faculty and students, as the Texas Tribune explains:
During that time, faculty leaders have passed resolutions calling for more involvement in university decisions, and research leaders on campus raised concerns with her administration’s decision-making. She was forced to walk back the decision to abruptly end the print publication of the university’s student newspaper, The Battalion, after students and alumni protested. Her administration also faced pushback from students after the school decided to cut funding and sponsorship of an annual campus drag show, known as Draggieland.
But even without all that, the shoddy treatment of Dr. Kathleen McElroy would have been plenty to shame a university president into falling on her sword, even if American PhDs don’t get swords (or top hats) like those awarded at Finnish universities.
A long long time ago — in June — Texas A&M announced it would revive its journalism department after it had been shut down in 2004. To lead the new department, the university tapped a prominent alum, Kathleen McElroy, who graduated from Texas A&M in 1981 and went on to a distinguished career in journalism, including 20 years in several editing roles at the New York Times, which we hear is a pretty well-known journalism concern.
After being in the business all those years, McElroy returned to Texas and got a doctorate in journalism at the University of Texas-Austin, where she later served as director of the School of Journalism, getting tenure in the process.
Hiring McElroy away from UT-Austin was a real coup for A&M, which held a big public signing ceremony to welcome her to the new job, which included an offer of tenure from the start, although the tenure decision would need to be approved by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents.
Nothing to worry about there, because after all, McElroy was an Aggie, a native Houstonian, and the daughter of Texas Journalism Hall Of Fame honoree George Albert McElroy, one of the state’s first prominent Black journalists. She’d reached the top of her profession twice, in journalism and in J-school, so who could doubt she’d bring all sorts of prestige with her as she revived A&M’s J-School?
Well, for starters, rightwing bigots, who are having their moment in Texas politics, and who howled in rage that Texas A&M would hire a Black woman who’d not only worked at the communist America-hating New York Times, but who had as an academic studied how newsrooms could become more diverse, which meant she obviously hates all white people. As the Tribune points out, this is
a fraught time at Texas public universities. Schools are preparing for a new state law to go into effect in January that bans offices, programs and training that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Recently, the Texas A&M System started a systemwide audit of all DEI offices in response to the new law.
McElroy’s appointment got caught up in the same racist panic over “critical race theory” and “the existence of Black people where white people can see them” that has led to dismissals of Black educators and book censorship across Red State America. Suddenly, McElroy learned that the terms of the job offer were modified: To avoid having to deal with the Regents, she agreed instead to a five-year appointment with the possibility of tenure later, when presumably the fever has passed.
But no, the university wasn’t done backing away from its decision quite yet: McElroy received a third and final offer letter to serve one year as a professor, with no tenure or suggestion she might get it, and a three-year appointment as head of the J-school, although both offers included the caveat that she could be fired whenever the university wanted, with no recourse. Say, that series of letters offering less and less sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?
Not surprisingly, McElroy said the hell with it and announced she’d be staying at UT-Austin where she’s wanted.
“This offer letter on Sunday really makes it clear that they don’t want me there,” she said. “But in no shape, form or fashion would I give up a tenured position at UT for a one-year contract that emphasizes that you can be let go at any point.”
At a faculty meeting Wednesday, then-President Banks told faculty members she hadn’t been behind the changes to the offer to McElroy, but that she took responsibility for the bollixed process; her resignation letter today, to Chancellor John Sharp, said as much, too:
“The recent challenges regarding Dr. McElroy have made it clear to me that I must retire immediately. The negative press is a distraction from the wonderful work being done here.”
In conclusion, we think there are probably some pretty wonderful things being done in the journalism school at UT-Austin, the end.
[Texas Tribune / Texas Tribune]
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