Armand Alacbay is chief of staff and senior vice president of strategy at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and a member of the George Mason University Board of Visitors.
Most people envision university trustees faithfully and enthusiastically attending college football games rather than being political footballs themselves. But if Democratic lawmakers in the Virginia General Assembly have their way, on July 1, they will unseat the governing boards of every public college and university in the commonwealth. And if this happens, get ready for other states to settle into partisan gridlock over board seats once commonly viewed merely as ceremonial rewards for boosters and fundraisers.
In 70 percent of states, the governor appoints members of higher education governing boards, commonly known as trustees or regents, or as they are known in Virginia, “visitors.” Generally, the confirmation process for trustees is noncontroversial, almost pro forma, in one of the few remaining traditions of bipartisan cooperation. The reason is a shared understanding that the appointing governor is ultimately accountable for a rogue trustee or a problematic board.
Virginia has become the exception to this trend. During Republican Glenn Youngkin’s term as governor, the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee summarily rejected numerous appointments to several Virginia universities, without holding a hearing on any single candidate. In the case of George Mason University, the committee rejected 14 of the governor’s appointees to the 16-member board — on which I currently serve — leaving it without a quorum for months. (The opinions expressed in this piece are my own and not those of George Mason University.)
H.B. 780 in the Virginia legislature would take this to the next level of politicization by purging all of Youngkin’s appointees, including sitting board members who have already been confirmed by the legislature. The bill’s proponents have not spoken publicly to justify the need for mass dismissals, but the partisan reasons are not hard to surmise. Democrats are annoyed by what they perceive as the boards’ insufficient resistance to the federal government’s increased level of intervention in higher education. That particularly includes the investigation of alleged civil rights violations that led to the resignation of the president of the University of Virginia.
State law defines board members’ “primary duty” as “to the citizens of the Commonwealth” rather than to the institution that they oversee. This is an important distinction. Trustees, if they are true fiduciaries, must often make choices that are unpopular on campus but in the public’s best interest.
While the new bill says it will prohibit boards from advancing “ideological” or “partisan” goals inconsistent with the mission of the university, it will likely have the opposite effect. For example: Would a board be prohibited by statute from investigating whether the burgeoning diversity, equity and inclusion programs beloved of university administrators enforce an intellectual orthodoxy on campus that suppresses the free exchange of ideas?
Ironically, Virginia’s current system of selecting visitors already has built-in safeguards to avoid politicization. Once appointed and confirmed, state law prevents board members from being unilaterally removed absent cause so that they are not beholden to the governor. Removing them en masse could threaten the accreditation of Virginia’s public universities, as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges has standards that forbid undue political influence on institutional governance.
The staggered nature of board terms ensures that boards will consist of appointees from different administrations as members turn over. This is especially true in Virginia because sitting governors are ineligible for reelection. To his credit, Youngkin reappointed more than a dozen visitors from his predecessor’s administration — all of whom will be removed if H.B. 780 becomes law.
The bill would even limit opportunities for boards to receive training beyond the anodyne programs delivered by the higher education organizations that support the current status quo. It would also prevent the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia from contracting for board training with any organization unless it has a “primary mission of the preparation of members of governing boards of postsecondary institutions.” That is a very small and predictable universe. Say goodbye to guest speakers from higher education reform groups or even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
President George Washington warned in his farewell address against “the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction.” If passed, this bill would launch a race to the bottom among states as university boards would fall victim to the whipsaw of the political pendulum. Students, taxpayers and anyone with an interest in continuity of governance would be left behind.
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