Following 24 hours of nearly universal outrage over the University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ announcement that the University of Maryland’s football coach and athletic director were being reinstated despite the death of a player earlier this year, and that university President Wallace D. Loh would retire in June, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) issued a new statement late Wednesday. It said, in full:
“I am deeply troubled by the lack of transparency from the Board of Regents, and deeply concerned about how they could have possibly arrived at the decisions announced yesterday.
“I share the concerns of many Marylanders and believe very strongly that more must be done to restore the public trust. I am calling on both the University System of Maryland Board of Regents and President Wallace Loh to reconsider their decisions and to schedule a public hearing to address these issues in an open and transparent manner.
“While the university system is required by law to operate independent of political influence, and as such no governor has the ability to hire or fire any university personnel or members of the Board of Regents, I can and will demand that the university is held accountable for making the reforms they have pledged to put in place with the full transparency that the students, parents, and faculty expect and deserve.
“The University System of Maryland has let down the University of Maryland community and the citizens of Maryland, and now is the time to fix it.”
In a related development, the House Appropriations Committee announced Wednesday that it has scheduled a public hearing on the controversy surrounding the Maryland football program for Nov. 15 in Annapolis.
“The tragic death of Jordan McNair and the unprecedented and unusual decision making process of the University System of Maryland Regents continues to raise more questions than answers,” House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) said in a statement. “The House of Delegates needs clear answers as to how and why Dr. Wallace Loh is being held accountable while the Head Coach and Athletic Director have been retained by the Regents directly.”
Josh Kurtz
Founding editor
Founding Editor Josh Kurtz is a veteran chronicler of Maryland politics and government. He began covering the State House in 1995 for The Gazette newspapers, and has been writing about state and local politics ever since. He was an editor at Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, for eight years, and for eight years was the editor of E&E Daily, which covers energy and environmental policy on Capitol Hill. For 6 1/2 years Kurtz wrote a weekly column on state politics for Center Maryland and has written for several other Maryland publications as well. Kurtz regularly gives speeches and appears on TV and radio shows to discuss Maryland politics.
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