Was the FAMU presidency sold to the highest MAGA bidders?

Get the Point!

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing…”—Edmund Burke, famed Anglo-Irish philosopher, journalist, and statesman

Long before the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees selected Marva Johnson to become the 13th university president, there were whispers that the process that elevated her over three finalists with vastly superior experience was the result of shady backroom agreements to align Lee Hall, FAMU's hallowed administration building, with the dictates of Gov. Ron Desantis and his MAGA agenda for Florida’s public universities.

When I was child literally growing up on the FAMU campus, many of my elders used to say, "what's done in the dark eventually comes into the light!" To their timeless point, while many of the eight FAMU BOT members who voted contrary to the Board's listed presidential requirements by backing Johnson, a candidate who lacked experience at a research university and with NCAA compliance, have strongly denied that MAGA politics had anything to do with their final decisions, well, to quote my late father Charles Hobbs, a FAMU Sports Hall of Fame member and career Army officer who was at times quite blunt in his delivery, "don't piss on my head and call it rain!"

A popular pop culture meme about the latest FAMU controversy circulating on social media

Well, that's precisely what the now infamous eight on the BOT are doing, pissin' and pretending that the painfully obvious isn't so, this in spite of alleged whispers that are growing into roaring evidence that Johnson was Desantis's preferred pick, and that several members of the BOT, including but not limited to Vice Chair Deveron Gibbons and Kelvin Lawson, are looking to expand their personal influence, their pocketbooks—or both, by backing Johnson.

One name that several well placed (and trusted) sources have pointed to being at the center of this growing scandal is Kelvin Lawson, a longtime trustee and former chair of FAMU’s BOT. Lawson, who voted in favor of Johnson’s selection despite overwhelming alumni and community support for arguably the most objectively qualified candidate, Dr. Donald Palm, has been quietly—but persistently—rumored to have secured a promise to be appointed as FAMU’s next Chief Operating Officer (COO) in return for his vote.

Trustee Kelvin Lawson

If true, Lawson would replace as COO...wait for it...Dr. Palm—a move that on the surface is arguably retaliatory and unquestionably dangerous in that if confirmed, the top two university officers, Johnson and Lawson, would enter into their new roles with a combined ZERO years of experience in running a major research university!

If this alleged agreement holds weight—and I repeat that multiple sources close to the search process have confirmed that Lawson as COO is a key silent part of MAGA Marva's master machinations—then FAMU’s BOT has functionally abandoned any pretense of fair and independent governance and has bent the knee in deference to Gov. Desantis!

In years past, Kelvin Lawson has been viewed by many as a stabilizing elder statesman on the FAMU BOT. A FAMU alumnus and longtime corporate executive, he honorably served multiple terms as BOT chair and has been on the Board during several rocky institutional moments, including the Robert Champion hazing manslaughter case in 2011, and the more recent fake $237 million gift from faux philanthropist Gregory Gerami.

But my well placed sources have noted that Lawson's interest in the FAMU COO position during the autumn of his professional years would allow him to obtain a seat of powerful influence at his alma mater—while cashing a six-figure salary to boot—all in a seeming quid pro quo to secure his vote for his unqualified would be boss, Marva Johnson.

Separately, my sources have further indicated that Gov. Desantis probed several members of the Florida Black Legislative Caucus earlier this spring to gauge potential support for Johnson's candidacy, long before semi-finalists were whittled down to an initial three finalists which included Dr. Palm, Dr. Ronnie Allen of the University of Maryland Eastern-Shore, and Mr. Gerald Hector, a finance expert and administrator at the University of Central Florida who previously served in a similar capacity at Morehouse College.

Now, it has been reported that Johnson was not an initial finalist and was later added to the final three by Vice Chair Deveron Gibbons, a longtime Republican operative and businessman with ties to both Desantis and President Donald Trump. Curiously, this tracks when considering that Gibbons was quoted in the Tallahassee Democrat last January as suggesting that the ideal candidate may be a non-traditional one with ties to the business world, a quote that proved prescient in a way that would make Nostradamus proud (or predictable because Johnson was the preferred candidate from the very first open call for applications) 🙄!

While anyone with even a basic level of discernment who watched Marva Johnson's totally unprepared and painfully poor interviews last week could see that the fix was already in from the highest level of governmental authorities, if there was any doubt whatsoever to this point, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier removed ALL doubts when he issued the following congratulatory Tweet to Johnson that gave a rhetorical high five to Gov. Desantis:

In conclusion, I would be derelict in my journalistic duties if I did not ask whether the FAMU BOT is being used as a career ladder by those who are supposed to exercise independent fiduciary oversight over the institution? Again, as of this writing, Trustee Lawson has not publicly acknowledged any such deal and Vice Chair Gibbons, the man who chaired the search process and allegedly offered Lawson the role, has not publicly acknowledged any such offer, acceptance, or deal.

But to get down to the heart of the matter, that’s precisely the problem—the FAMU BOT's business with respect to this presidential hasn’t been done in the light of day! Indeed, from leaks of the final candidate list, to private communications from Florida Board of Governors (BOG) members during public BOT meetings, to the dismissals of dissenting trustees like Earnie Ellison, recently, and Otis Cliatt before him, this entire presidential selection process has insidiously festered in the shadows and reeks like a rancid roadkill broiling in the sweltering late spring Florida heat!

Lest we forget that Florida's Sunshine laws exist for a reason and in this instance, the taxpaying public, the students who pay tuition and fees, the faculty and staff who drive academic excellence, and the alumni and supporters who invest their time and money have every right to ask was the FAMU presidency sold off to secure a particular vote—and whether other backroom deals, such as consulting fees, real estate deals, presidential appointments, or extremely generous church tithes and offerings, were sold off to secure MAGA Marva Johnson's selection?

If it was, then the FAMU BOT doesn’t just have a credibility problem, it has a corruption problem that is fecund for investigation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and other federal and state investigative bodies. And until we know the truth, we ALL are left with the absolute appearance of impropriety and the sounds of silence from eight members of the FAMU BOT who continue to deny, deflect, and duck perhaps the most urgent questions of all: What were the total costs of their vote(s) for Marva Johnson, and what will the collective costs be for FAMU when considering that Marva Johnson, Deveron Gibbons et al may have access to the MAGA master’s kitchen, but may not have the power to sit down, eat, and defend Mother FAMU at the MAGA dining room table?