Adam Weinstein: Don’t let FSU become another Penn State

Two years ago, a Florida state senator introduced a bill “to halt the revolving door between the Legislature and state universities” and bar lawmakers from running to jobs at colleges they fund. He explained to the Florida Times-Union that “even in cases where lawmakers are doing everything ethically,” such a relationship could raise “red flags,” adding: “It brings up an awkward situation when they have to do something like vote for the budget.”

That man is still in the Florida Senate. He is John Thrasher, Senate president, former Republican Party of Florida chairman, and current chair of Rick Scott’s re-election campaign. And now he wants to run Florida State University.

He will run Florida State University, despite his hypocrisy, despite the damage he’s done to higher education in the state, despite his ethical lapses and the unsavory company he keeps in Tallahassee, because the selection process for a university president is gamed in his favor. A foregone conclusion. Window dressing for politicians and deep-pocketed donors, and special interests that care less about FSU’s education and research mission than keeping a well-oiled commerce and lobbying system going for a few lucky friends.

The stacked presidential search process started with one “candidate,” John Thrasher. When the university community called shenanigans, the politically connected search committee expanded its field to 10 eminently qualified, academically credentialed educators … and John Thrasher. This week, the search committee whittled that list down to three experienced lifelong professors, department chairs, school deans … and John Thrasher.

Despite the overwhelming opposition to him on the search committee’s own comment board from hundreds of faculty, students, staff, and community members, he moves on. Despite the Faculty Senate’s opposition to his candidacy, the fix is in. Any of the three amazing candidates who have graciously, courageously stuck with the process this long would make a fine captain to helm FSU. But ultimately, it will be John Thrasher, as it was preordained.

I’ve covered some of Thrasher’s questionable relationships before, and the reasons he’s all wrong for this job. But here’s just another little taste of the experience he brings to FSU:

–Thrasher has voted, on multiple occasions, to cut Florida’s higher-education budget by hundreds of millions of dollars, including one cut that occasioned FSU to put 50 faculty members on the chopping block.

–He was a registered lobbyist for a group that killed a bill to close tax loopholes for out-of-state businesses that would have brought nearly half a billion dollars to state universities.

–He’s fought tenure, the cornerstone of academic freedom.

–He’s violated state ethics laws twice — that we know of.

–He’s running the campaign of a governor who wants to financially penalize FSU students who don’t major in the disciplines he thinks are valuable — and who equates value with profitability for private industry.

–He has a reputation for being ill-tempered and intimidating even to his peers.

Oh, sure, he has had support from a few students, like the four FSU seniors who launched a “support John Thrasher” website on Wednesday night, and took extraordinary measures to cover up who’s paying for it.

All four are officers of the small but disproportionately influential Greek fraternity system at Florida State. One is a legislative intern who worked with Thrasher in Tallahassee. One is an officer of the Seminole Boosters, a half-billion-dollar organization whose generous support for FSU runs from A to B, if B stands for Bigtime Football. Its commercial interests and influence often run counter to the academic, research, and professional aspirations of the university.

One is the president of Pi Kappa Alpha, a very politically connected frat. At the FSU Pike house, there’s a plaque dedicated to Harry Sargeant III, calling him “the most powerful man no one knows.” Sargeant, a big Pike and FSU football supporter, is a Republican fundraiser in Thrasher’s inner circle who even ran finance for the state GOP — the same party Thrasher ran. The Pentagon says Sargeant overcharged Uncle Sam by as much as $200 million to transport oil for the troops in Iraq. He’s currently under a DOJ investigation for bribing foreign officials with millions in connection with that scheme. And Sargeant has long denied reports that prostitutes join him on Caribbean retreats he organizes with fellow high-ranking Florida Republicans and fraternity brothers.

These are the kinds of “friends” and admirers who fill Thrasher’s Rolodex. You’d be hard-pressed to find any such folks anywhere near the three bona-fide professors and university administrators competing with him for the FSU job.

I know Thrasher likes FSU, or at least the parts of FSU that like him — the Greek scene, the athletics scene, the boosters. These are cultures to be proud of at Florida State, but they are not the end-all be-all of the university. At times in recent years, their influence has grown out of hand, and the entire FSU community’s reputation has suffered as a result of some bad-faith action over there.

For their sake, and for the sake of education and research, they shouldn’t be given the keys to the kingdom, or a king who will be at their beck and call. There is a vibrant role for them, and for Thrasher, to play in the FSU community. But it’s not in the president’s office.

What has been missed in all these political machinations is the unique opportunity for an already-great university to become a world-renowned institution, whose faculty and research enlighten not just Floridians, or Americans, but the whole of humanity. It would be a shame to squander that opportunity and further burden the university with the reputation for provincialism and corruption that already plagues Tallahassee and Florida politics. The kind of provincialism and corruption that not only erodes a learning institution’s mission, but enables bigger crimes.

Through all this, the single biggest obstacle to Florida State’s continued greatness is the rush to anoint Thrasher — and to install an ethically challenged culture, focused on the home team and favors for friends and secretive dealings instead of academics and integrity. This university could be the next Harvard of the South. But the presidential search committee seems determined to make it the next Penn State.

Adam Weinstein is a Tallahassee-based senior writer for Gawker. He has worked for the Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, and Mother Jones. Column courtesy of Context Florida.