Spellings’ task will be serve UNC, not politics

Because Margaret Spellings was chosen under a veil of secrecy, her plans and priorities as the newly elected president of the University of North Carolina system remain unknown.

All the public can examine is her resumé. Spellings, 57, was schooled in politics by Karl Rove, the long-time, hard-line Bush family maven, and she worked in several jobs, including as U.S. secretary of education, for President George W. Bush. She is said to be direct, and tough, and to care about public education.

She deserves not just the benefit of the doubt, but the support of those within and without the university system’s community. She will be tested early on, and often.

Spellings has work to do to build confidence in her administration. And that work is largely the result of the way in which her hiring came about. President Tom Ross was ousted because he was a Democrat and the Board of Governors and General Assembly are dominated almost entirely by Republicans. He has been a capable president. His was a partisan dismissal, pure and simple.

Then the search for a successor began and dragged on, with those involved knowing the new president would first have to be a Republican and a conservative, above all else. Some potential candidates declined. And the circumstances of the removal of Ross didn’t help. Then, state Senate President pro tem Phil Berger and his allies got in on the act, reportedly with a candidate of their own, and certainly they’ve signaled they intend to have input into the running of the UNC system, in particular in an effort to “de-liberalize” the main campus in Chapel Hill.

Spellings has a big job. She won it on her political rather than her educational credentials. But despite the politics of her hiring, she will have to demonstrate she can resist political pressures. The greatest pressure will likely come from the hard-right ideologues in the General Assembly, not from the liberals in Chapel Hill.

She may be sure that almost immediately, Berger and his allies will expect the president to report to them in addition to reporting to the Board of Governors.

This won’t work, not if Spellings is to be a successful president. She will have to display independence early on, to show that she is open-minded and willing to listen to all viewpoints. That will mean, on occasion, taking up the case of a professor or a course or a cause in the name of academic freedom, though her own viewpoint may differ from the one she is defending.

If Spellings caves in to political pressure, she may gain the temporary support of GOP lawmakers (though not their respect), but she will lose, quickly, the support of her constituents on the 17 UNC system campuses.

Margaret Spellings has what has become the most difficult job in North Carolina. She must remember not why she was hired, but whom she serves. Now she reports to all the state’s residents., not to one party or the other, not to legislators. Those residents, hundreds of thousands of them in one way or another touched by the branches on the UNC system, want her to succeed. Their support comes, at least for a while, with the job. Thereafter, it will have to be earned.

This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Spellings’ task will be serve UNC, not politics."