After USC board drama, could there be a trustee shakeup? Newcomers want seats at the table
Five longtime members of the University of South Carolina board of trustees could be in danger of losing their influential seats after a panel of state lawmakers on Tuesday refused to advance the candidacies to the General Assembly for a vote.
The refusal came after lawmakers grilled the five current board members about the hiring of former President Bob Caslen, the search for his replacement, the multi-million dollar buyouts of former football coach Will Muschamp and former men’s basketball coach Frank Martin, and other issues.
On Tuesday, the joint legislative panel advanced the candidacies of all six newcomers and incumbent Alex English, who was reelected to the board last May. But they agreed to sit on the candidacies of five unopposed incumbents — Eddie Floyd, John von Lehe, Chairman Dorn Smith, Thad Westbrook and Charles Williams — declining to send them to a final reelection vote by the Legislature, scheduled for May 4.
“Their names will not be on that ballot until they clear the screening committee,” said committee member Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland. “I think we’re going to meet within the next two weeks and make final decisions. So, put a different way, what we just did is clear the slate except for those five. Those five are still in limbo.”
Only two seats on the University of South Carolina board are wide open this year after two Upstate incumbents declined to seek reelection to four-year terms in 2022, with six candidates hoping to fill those influential spots.
Lawmakers for hours on Monday saved their most heated questions for the current board members who are seeking reelection about whether the state’s flagship university was prioritizing diversity, why it agreed to divvy out buyouts to Muschamp and Martin and whether lessons were ever learned after the messy presidential search in 2019.
Legislators paid special attention to one incumbent hoping to keep his seat again: Smith, whose two years leading the board have included a public flare-up with university megadonor Lou Kennedy and the selection of Michael Amiridis as the university’s new president to succeed Caslen
“Between the Caslen debacle and the buyout of Muschamp’s (contract), this just doesn’t really create a lot of confidence in y’alls competency, do you understand ... that perspective?” Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Richland Democrat who sits on the joint House and Senate panel tasked with screening college and university board members, asked Smith. “Isn’t it time that we do more than just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic? I mean, this university has had its ups and downs as long as I’ve lived in Columbia.”
‘That search was a mess’
University board members largely agreed on one thing during their individual screening hearings Monday: the selection process that ultimately resulted in Caslen’s presidency in 2019 was a mess and a repeat can’t happen again.
Three years ago, Caslen was one of four finalists to replace Harris Pastides as president. The board interviewed all four, and decided to reopen the search. But Gov. Henry McMaster, an ex-officio member of the board, forced a vote on Caslen, who was chosen on a split vote. Caslen, a retired three-star Army general and former superintendent at U.S. Military Academy at West Point, resigned last year after he plagiarized part of his graduation address.
“It was poorly handled from the beginning,” testified board member Williams, who voted against hiring Caslen and at one point sued the board for failing to give board trustees the statutory heads up ahead of the meeting to vote on his presidency. “I hate to beat a dead horse, actually he did a very good job with the pandemic. It was just kind of a uphill fight.”
The close 11-8 vote followed weeks of student and faculty protests over particularly Caslen’s inexperience running a public university and accusations that the governor’s office politically intervened in the search, which later sparked a formal inquiry from the university’s accrediting body.
“That search was a mess,” said Westbrook, who said that at the time, “we were not healthy as a board.”
Board members and lawmakers on Monday lauded Caslen for moving the university through the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasizing the need for the school to reflect the state’s diverse population, respectively.
But Caslen’s presidency was cut short. He resigned in May 2021 following a graduation gaffe in which he referred to the university as the “University of California” and gave a speech in which he pulled quotes but failed to credit the source.
Months later, the Post and Courier of Charleston published emails between Caslen and former South Carolina State University President James Clark. In one email, Caslen wrote, “This place sucks so bad. I don’t know how anyone can stand it.”
Caslen also told the newspaper that going to the university was “the biggest regret of my life.”
“Most unfortunate,” von Lehe, who was chairman of the board when it named Caslen, said about Caslen’s remarks. “Well, for one thing, I lived through those years with him and I worked with him hand in hand and saw people come around to support him during all of these times. I had a different outlook on that.”
Pastides rejoined the university as interim president. After a monthslong search, the name of a top candidate, Mung Chiang, was leaked. He dropped out a few days later, citing family concerns, and the board named Amiridis, the university’s former provost, president-elect in January.
“You know what they say about people’s second guess, but in my mind we missed an absolutely golden opportunity to hire Dr. Tate,” House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, said Monday.
William Tate was one of four finalists with Caslen for president in 2019. He later became the university’s first Black provost, but left the college to become president at Louisiana State University.
“That’s behind us now,” Lucas said, “and, as I said, Dr. Amiridis is going to be a great president of the University of South Carolina.”
‘A difficult exchange’
Lawmakers, however, refused to put the spat between Nephron Pharmaceuticals’ owner Lou Kennedy and board chairman Smith behind them, a public blowup that unraveled after Kennedy left the presidential search committee in protest after a trip to Atlanta.
It was the second major snafu with a big USC donor after USC failed to reach out to Darla Moore when her mother died.
Kennedy told The State that Smith “pointed his finger over and over to my face and said, ‘You don’t get a vote Lou, you’re just here as a courtesy.’”
In his explanation to lawmakers on Monday, Smith said his comments to Kennedy came after a meeting when Kennedy was giving advice to the board on how to handle the presidential search.
“And what I pointed out was that we have had voting and non-voting members on the committee. And during that period of time, I said, ‘Lou, you know, golly gee, thank you all for your service and ... we appreciate it,’” Smith said. “I said I’d like to point out that there were voting and non-voting members but we let everybody vote to give their opinion on who should be recommended ... back to the board to determine that as a courtesy for everyone’s hard work. Even the non-voting members were granted their right to say their say.”
Smith said he did not recall wagging his finger across her face, but said he apologized to Kennedy, who he has “utmost respect for” and called her a “valued member of our community.” They later flew on the same plane back home together.
Board members Westbrook and English said they witnessed what Westbrook called a “difficult exchange.”
“I spoke to the chairman after that and thought he should apologize,” Westbrook said. “I can understand why she was upset.”
English did not witness the plane ride after, declining to fly back with the others to South Carolina.
“I don’t like flying on small planes,” he said.
‘Not a great head football coach’
Lawmakers also latched onto the buyouts for former coaches Muschamp and Martin.
After his firing in 2019, football coach Muschamp reached a deal with the university to be paid $12.9 million in one lump sum. Martin, who was recently let go as the men’s basketball coach after 10 years, will get $3 million.
In Muschamp’s case, Harpootlian argued the university should never have brokered that deal, struck amid the COVID-19 pandemic when college sports shut down and the athletics department was losing millions of dollars and did not have the cash on hand to pay Muschamp’s buyout.
The university loaned the athletics department roughly $10 million to cover his payment — a large lump sum that Williams, who opposes big buyouts, alleged the board wasn’t aware of until later on and asked for more oversight.
“You do have oversight, because you hire a president do you not?” Speaker Lucas asked Williams. “And the president hires the athletic director, is that correct? And if we make poor decisions in hiring the president then we lose our ability to have oversight on athletics, wouldn’t you agree with that?”
Asked his take, Smith told lawmakers, “the short answer is, I don’t like credit (or having to loan) obviously,” when asked whether athletics director Ray Tanner should have fired Muschamp. “I think Coach Muschamp is a fine person. I think he was not a great head football coach.”
Martin’s $3 million buyout and how it’s paid will be negotiated in the coming weeks, though Tanner indicated that the former coach will receive the full amount. Had the university waited one more season — after April 1, 2023 — the athletics director could have fired Martin without any buyout obligation.
State Rep. John King, a York Democrat who sits on the screening panel, questioned whether Tanner was forced to fire Martin, citing calls he’s received that a board member called and forced the firing of Martin. He did not name the board member.
“He just told me he was under extreme pressure, and that’s all I know,” said Williams, who also offered up a private conversation he had with Pastides about Martin. Williams said he asked Pastides whether he OK’d Martin’s firing, to which he said Pastides replied, “I told him I’m out of here in May, I don’t have to live with it but I thought the best thing is to let him stay another year and save $3 million.”
Speaker: ‘Why in the world would we reelect’ you?
The General Assembly will decide in May who among six Upstate candidates will fill two board seats held by attorney Tony Lister and retired banker Mack Whittle, both of whom decided not to seek reelection to another term for the 7th and 13 judicial circuits, respectively.
Hoping to succeed Lister is Spartanburg’s Patrick Anderson and Benjamin Graves and Gaffney’s Hank Jolly Jr. In the 13th Circuit, Simpsonville’s Chip Felkel and Greenville’s Brody Glenn and Reid Sherard are running to fill Whittle’s current seat.
Lawmakers on the screening panel asked few questions of the newcomers, mostly whether they watched Monday’s hearing.
“It was enlightening, I’ll say that much,” Anderson told the panel Tuesday.
How the panel moves forward on the five incumbents whose names lawmakers declined to advance Tuesday is not entirely clear. And it’s not clear whether the Legislature will finally move on legislation that aims to reform the board, including its size.
“We can’t have coach buyouts; we can’t have professors that are accused of sexual harassment multiple times that continue to teach,” Finlay said. “We do not control the president, but we control the board and I think what we’re sending is a message that we’re going to spend some more time on how that board acts and reacts.”
What is clear is that lawmakers on the panel are ready for the board to be shaken up.
“If the board is as dysfunctional as you say it is, why in the world would we reelect any of the current members back to their current seats?” Lucas asked Williams.
“That’s up to y’all,” Williams said.
This story was originally published March 29, 2022 at 10:38 AM with the headline "After USC board drama, could there be a trustee shakeup? Newcomers want seats at the table."
