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Interference in colleges? It's a regular Capitol game

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published January 30, 2005

In 1955, with big, important matters facing Florida, the issue on the mind of our state Legislature was . . . college football.

Not integration. Not the economy. Not badly needed reform. The Legislature was miffed that the University of Florida had not scheduled a football game with Florida State University.

Bingo! To appease the Legislature, the state Board of Control, which ran Florida's universities at the time, commanded such a game. The chairman instructed the schools: "If your athletic directors can't get together on this, get new athletic directors."

(That wasn't the only political comment on university athletics that year. When Florida lost to Tennessee 20-0, ex-Gov. Fuller Warren made front-page news by calling the loss "a shame and a disgrace" and opining the Gators had "no excuse.")

In short, meddling by state politicians in Florida's universities is not new. But it reached its all-time peak in 1999, when FSU alumni in the Legislature demanded a medical school, and the university board (now called the Board of Regents) refused.

The response: The Legislature simply abolished the Board of Regents. But Florida's voters rebelled, and in 2002 voted to create a new, independent state Board of Governors. This one can't be abolished.

That track record is why this past week's decision by that young Board of Governors to reject a chiropractic school at FSU, even though the Legislature wanted it, was billed as such a historic moment.

And sure, historic it was.

Still, before everybody congratulates themselves too much. . .

It was a little less like Gary Cooper in High Noon and a little more like having to be the one to shoot Old Yeller.

The chiropractic school was in serious trouble, if not already dead. FSU's own local board of trustees ducked the issue.

And on Jan. 18, the governor himself signaled the end by saying his appointees should simply "vote their conscience."

What if, instead of having wimpy trustees and a furious faculty, FSU had been all for it? What if the Legislature and the governor had vowed to go to war for it?

It's not entirely a rhetorical question. That's the kind of rough water the board has to navigate from here. Shooting down a goofy idea from the Legislature is easy, compared to presiding over coming fights over tuition and programs.

Gainesville vs. Tallahassee. Tampa vs. Fort Lauderdale. Sometimes the powerful school presidents will be united against the board, flirting with the Legislature. Sometimes they will be sticking knives in one another's backs, each accusing the board members of favoring the other.

Still, this is a start.

Before we leave this topic, let's consider one more time what happened here.

The Legislature rammed through a chiropractic school at a Florida university because some of its big-shot members happen to be chiropractors. The university never asked for it.

State Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, complained after Thursday's decision that Bush had sold out the deal and should have twisted arms on the Board of Governors.

"The governor shook my hand and drank my champagne and said congratulations on a job well done," King said. King said as Senate president the past two years, he worked to pass some of Bush's priorities, such as the Scripps Research Institute in Palm Beach County.

"It doesn't make me feel any better that I shook hands over $360-million for Scripps with the understanding that the chiropractic school was a done deal," King said.

So, see, not to pick on Jim King especially, but this is the difference between me and the Legislature. To the Legislature, admitting that you agreed to spend $360-million of other peoples' money in exchange for a favor is "politics." To me, it ought to be the subject of a recall, an indictment and a prison sentence. But hey, I'm just a pain in the neck that way.

You know what we need in this state, among other things, maybe a tad more than state-created chiropractors? Nurses. Teachers. Classes not held in trailers. But, God forbid that we should set our priorities based on the merits.

[Last modified January 30, 2005, 00:09:11]