Summary of Auburn Chapter AAUP meeting, October 9, 2003

The Auburn Chapter of AAUP met on October 9, 2003 at 12:00 p.m. in Thach 202.

Andy Hornsby, member of the Trustee Selection Committee, addressed the attendees to explain the reasons that the new Trustees were not appointed during the Legislature’s Special Session. This is a summary of Mr. Hornsby’s remarks.

SUMMARY OF AUDIOTAPE-RECORDING OF MR. ANDY HORNSBY’S REMARKS CONCERNING FAILURE OF THE ALABAMA SENATE CONFIRMATIONS COMMITTEE TO CONFIRM THREE NEW TRUSTEES TO THE AU BOARD OF TRUSTEES, DUE TO LACK OF QUORUM, ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2003.

I have been active in what I consider the struggle for several years. I got involved in what I thought was a very simple process – let’s change the way we select our trustees at Auburn University. Some years ago, wise people such as Wynton Blount and others at the University of Alabama said let’s take some of the politics, at least, out of the Trustee selection process. That made a lot of sense to me. Made sense to others. We had a couple of nasty fights, as you may recall, back in the 90s, when Fob James was Governor, over an appointment or two. I was asked to be considered for the Alumni Board and then got heavily involved. I was one of the five Board members at Homecoming 2000 when there was an attempt to vote us out and bring in proxies for a hand-picked slate of Alumni Board members – which I thought was strange. I didn’t know anybody on the existing board. We had an astronaut, Dr. Jan Davis. We had a famed orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Ed Dyas, who was a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. I thought pretty good slate of people. Nick Davis, owns Taco Bells all over Florida. All of a sudden there was an effort was made to remove this slate and go with a new slate. I won’t dwell on that, but since that time I have been engaged. I’m going to stay engaged. I will not quit. I will stay with this until it is done. I think it is time for new blood on this Board of Trustees. I’ve said that publicly and continue to say that.

I will cut to the chase and go to the events of Sept. 25, the next to the last day of the legislative session. I really thought we would get the appointments done during the special session. I was disappointed the Governor didn’t put this in his call. But very frankly, Gov. Riley had a lot more important things to deal with in the state budget, so I sort of understand that. He did have a couple of his staff who worked very closely on this effort. Sen. Barron, during both of his interviews with the Selection Committee, answered questions from my colleague Owen Brown –

“Will you, if you are not a selectee of this Committee, impede the approval through the Senate process?” He said, “I assure you I will not. That would be mean spirited if I did that.” If I remember his exact words. And I accepted that. Anybody that knows Alabama politics knows that it’s very simple. If we got those nominees through, Sen. Barron would have allowed it to happen. If they did not go through, Sen. Barron would have stopped it. It’s that simple. Sen. McClain, E.B. of Birmingham, had, it has been widely reported, a choice for Pardon and Parole Board; he very much wanted that person selected, and the person had outstanding qualifications. The Governor has submitted another name. The Confirmations Committee met real hurriedly a few days prior to Sept. 25, rejected the Governor’s choice. The name Sen. McClain wanted was resubmitted. I thought that since Sen. McClain’s choice was with our nominees and there were State Board of Education members and others, it was an important time to have a Confirmations Committee meeting.

However, on Wednesday, we ran into the first problem getting it, quote, “out of the basket.” That’s not a complicated process. It is just a simple referral to the appropriate committee. Sen. Barron said that he just didn’t have time to get to that. Everybody knows that it takes nothing more than a nod to get those nominees sent to the Committee. If you don’t get “out of the basket” in a special session like that with limited days and to the Committee by the third or fourth legislative day, your chances of seeing the Confirmations Committee process completed is very, very dim. So we started putting the pressure on to get the nominees out of the basket, and finally they were referred out of the basket just a few days prior that Sept. 25 date. I thought, well, we still have time because the session was dragging on longer than some thought it would, and we still had a few days to work with. So I was feeling pretty good. But on Wednesday afternoon I got a call from a high-placed source with the administration who told me there was good news and bad news. The good news is that a Senate Confirmations Committee meeting had been called for the following morning. The bad news is though there won’t be a quorum. And I thought that was strange, but I thought – we gotta work to get a quorum. So I made some phone calls and sent out some e-mails.

We heard one of our great supporters, the Senator from Jasper, Alabama, had left town because his wife had a baby, but he was back the next morning, on time. We stayed about 24 to 48 hours behind the power curve all during that special session. We didn’t know what was going to happen. We could not marshal any support because we didn’t know when meetings were going to be held. I’m not sure that wasn’t somewhat by design. I got there about 9 a.m. the next morning and immediately started working to try to see how many Senators would be there because we needed seven. We knew we had about four or five for sure, and we needed to pick up two or three more. I still thought it would happen. They were all at a breakfast meeting, a 7:30 breakfast meeting together. The first time I guess I became really alarmed – at precisely five minutes to 10 I came around the corner and met Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley. Lucy and I know each other. And she said, “Andy you can go home.” And I said, “No, what do you mean?” She said, “It was all worked out last night. There will not be a quorum here.” I said, “Lucy, we have got to do everything we can.” She said, “I’m telling you there will not be a quorum. I wish I could tell you better news.” I said, “Can you help us?” She said, “I will do anything I can, but there’s simply not going to be a quorum at your meeting.”

I was chagrined by that and I was making my way to Sen. Pat Lindsey’s office. Sen. Lindsey is a Democrat and has been a very strong supporter of Sen. Barron. He is an ATIP-supported Senator, and we gave him $10,000. I ran into Sen. Gerald Dial who has been very strongly in support of us. He said, “You’re not going to have a quorum. You won’t have it.” That’s two people within the course of five minutes that told me it was all pretty much orchestrated. I saw Sen. Barron, but didn’t have a chance to talk to him. I did get Sen. Little and ask him to come. The Confirmations Committee meeting was the only business occurring in the halls of the Senate that morning. The session didn’t start until either 11 or 1 o’clock later that day, so there wasn’t any more business going on. I still held out hope that maybe miraculously some people would appear. We got in the room, and we had five of the seven needed. And Sen. Lindsey opened the door and kinda slowly looked in and took a seat, asked for a roll call. Sen. Lindsey called the meeting to order, called the roll, and adjourned for lack of a quorum. I was deeply disappointed. Especially disappointed at Sen. Hinton Mitchem, who is another ATIP-supported Senator we gave $10,000 to. He has been asked to return his $10,000. Sen. Harri Ann Means from the Wiregrass had a Chamber of Commerce called meeting, and she had to be there for jobs in the Wiregrass. I don’t know, maybe it was important, but I think we’ll have her there next time. People from Auburn have spoken loud and clear down there and will continue to speak so.

So when asked if Sen. Barron had anything to do with this – I don’t know. I know what I was told. I was told by reliable sources that it was set up the night before. I know Sen. Barron’s allies didn’t appear. I only can draw a conclusion that it was somewhat orchestrated. I don’t know that, and he said it was not. So they adjourned, and some of our supporters said they were going to try to lock the Senate down and start filibustering til we could get another Confirmations Committee meeting held. Sen. McClain had a sudden attack of gout and headed back to Birmingham, I was told. So we had to give up.

We’ll come back again Feb. 6, and, if we do our job between now and Feb. 6, it should be fairly easy. We should have every Senator saying they want to dispose of this Auburn matter now and get it over so we can get on with business. Again, I’ve known Sen. Barron for many years. I used to be on the Commission for the Alabama Department of Human Resources; I served two terms. He was a great supporter of mine and my department. I had a lot of respect for him; he is a very shrewd politician. I learned politics from him, what little I know about it. I do believe that if Sen. Barron had wanted this to come out of Confirmations Committee, we would have had a quorum and gotten it done. I believe that the fact that we didn’t have a quorum, those allies of Sen. Barron chose to stay away because of that issue. Thank you.

Auburn Chapter AAUP Resolution Asking for Lowell Barron’s Resignation from the Board of Trustees

After Mr.Hornby’s remarks the following resolution was introduced and discussed. It passed 44-0.

Whereas the American Association of University Professors supports a trustee selection process that provides “serious attention … to obtaining properly qualified persons,”

¹ and

Whereas the constitutionally-mandated Auburn University Trustee Selection Committee engaged in an open and fair process to select three qualified persons to serve on the Auburn University Board of Trustees and submitted the names of the nominees to Alabama State Senate in a timely manner, and

Whereas President Pro Tem Lowell Barron withheld the nominations from the Senate Confirmations Committee until almost the end of the special legislative session, and

Whereas, the Senate Confirmations Committee failed to achieve a quorum because known political allies of Mr. Barron failed to attend the committee meeting, and

Whereas, knowledgeable observers such as Trustee Selection Committee member Andy Hornsby, State Senator Ted Little and the editorial boards of numerous state newspapers have publicly attributed the lack of a quorum and the subsequent blocking of confirmations of these three new trustees to Mr. Barron,

Whereas, these recent events cast further doubt on the integrity of the nomination process and once again demonstrate the conflict of interest inherent in Mr. Barron serving as both President Pro Tem of the Senate and a member of the Auburn University Board of Trustees,

Therefore be it resolved that the Auburn University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors calls upon Mr. Barron, without delay, to resign his seat on the Auburn University Board of Trustees.

Note 1: “Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities,”-, Policy Documents and Reports, American Association of University Professors, 9^th Edition, 2001, p. 220. This statement on university governance was jointly formulated by the American Council on Education, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges and the American Association of University Professors in 1967.

During and after the vote on the resolution, Mr. Hornsby answered questions posed by attendees.

The meeting was adjourned 1:25.

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