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Thursday, May 18, 2006
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AU Board of Trustees Features Longest-Running Carmen David Carmen, a Washington lobbyist, maintains his seat on the operatically dysfunctional American University board of trustees, despite fortissimo hints from the United States Senate that he - and his friends on the board who unapologetically made possible the Ladner fiasco - should go. AU's Carmen, one tough oiseau rebel, refuses to move his ass. "People do not tolerate leaks anymore," he wrote his fellow trustees during the crisis, in response to an anonymous whistle blower's letter to them about scummy goings-on. Instead of examining the claims this person made -- all of them true -- Carmen tried to rally the board to expose and crush the whistle blower: "No one is so naive anymore to think that unidentified 'whistle-blowers' are public servants." Naivete. The world of the Carmens is a tough, reality-based world in which you get what you can how you can and crush the naivete that would stop you. It was naive to think the board's misbehavior would be stopped by financial penalties they could afford to pay: "According to Mr. Grassley, the Senate investigation revealed 'shocking' comments by American's trustees that the rules could be disregarded because fines would be minimal." Naivete. "Colleges and universities are supposed to be places you can be idealistic and altruistic," one AU student says about what happened there -- what continues to happen there. The tainted trustees "took those core beliefs and shattered them." How naive. |