Many within the Rutgers community have called for university President Robert Barchi to resign after the basketball scandal that has caught national attention. Among those calling for Barchi’s resignation is Rutgers Professor Belinda Edmondson. She told NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider that Barchi should be held accountable for the handling of the situation as the leader of the university.
According to Edmondson, Barchi has a transparency problem. “He just needs to come clean with us — the faculty and the staff and the students of Rutgers — and he needs to come clean with the people of New Jersey whom he serves, since he runs the flagship public education institution in the state,” she said.
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Edmondson said she suspects Barchi isn’t being open about many issues, not just the basketball scandal. “When we directly call his office or write letters, … there’s no directness there. So there’s a transparency problem there,” she said. “And also first at the Rutgers-Newark campus where I teach, we are really distressed about the fact that we think that he’s not coming clean with regard to his intentions for our campus with his strategic plan.”
Barchi isn’t entirely to blame for the underfunding of Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden, Edmondton said. “There’s a long history of kind of a de facto de-funding if you will of the Newark and Camden campuses even though the Rutgers charter states that we should have three centers of excellence equal to each other. So that’s not President Barchi,” she said. “But what is concerning to us is that this new strategic plan wants to turn a de facto de-funding and if you will, inequity, into a du jour inequity.”
Edmondton said Barchi appears to be violating the restructuring law written by legislators who were trying to protect the Newark campus.
Some reports have said Rutgers board members knew about the controversy with basketball coach Mike Rice back in December. Edmondton said, in her opinion, board members seem to be mostly in the dark on issues and the story is still unfolding.
“So far we’ve discovered that one Board of Governors member knew about that video in December. We have no reason, at this point, to say that anyone else knew. But we would like some discussion — some public discussion — from the board, from the university as to what everyone knew,” Edmondton said. “This is not a witch hunt. This is just a transparency issue.”
Some have said Athletic Director Tim Pernetti, who resigned following the scandal, was made a scapegoat in the situation. Edmondton said she was one of the people calling for Pernetti’s resignation and she stands by that decision because she believes he had to be held accountable for his actions regarding Rice. But she added that she does feel some sympathy for Pernetti.
“I think he may have had instincts the other way but I suspect, again, that there was some pressure from above to do the wrong thing and he buckled under pressure from his bosses and did the wrong thing. And he needs to be accountable for the wrong thing,” Edmondton said. “But that doesn’t mean he’s the primary villain in the case.”
When asked who the primary villain in this situation is, Edmondton said, “I don’t know but I think, personally, I think this is President Barchi because the buck should stop with the president. It’s very clear to us he knew — whether he saw the tape or did not see the tape — he knew there was a problem. It seems that his staff were begging him to look at the video. Why would you not look at the video? I don’t understand it. No one understands.”