4 December 2021: Cuomo Loyalist Majority on SUNY Board Stands By Malatras

SUNY board stands by chancellor amid increased calls for his resignation

This report indicates the board members of the State University of New York are signaling they have lower standards for conduct than Times Up, the anti-sexual harassment activist group whose leadership chose to back Cuomo over the women who came forward to accuse him of sexually harassing them, not to mention the women who made the toxic environment within the Cuomo administration public.

Calls are growing from SUNY students and teachers for Chancellor James Malatras to resign over his smearing of Lindsey Boylan, the first woman to publicly accuse ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo of harassment.

State school trustees and labor leaders, however, stood by Malatras Friday, praising his leadership during the pandemic and rejecting the call from a coalition of SUNY government representatives to replace him.

The Student Assembly and the Faculty Council of Community Colleges at SUNY had issued statements demanding that Malatras step down due to his “unbecoming” behavior.

SUNY's board is made up of 18 members, 15 of whom were appointed to their position by Andrew M. Cuomo.

As was Malatras, in a highly unusual appointment on 28 August 2020.

Here's the full text of the SUNY board's statement, which was issued late on Friday, 3 December 2021:

"Dr. Jim Malatras has been an outstanding leader of SUNY through one of the most trying times in our history and has the support of the SUNY Board of Trustees. He's acknowledged he made a mistake, taken full responsibility for it, and apologized appropriately. He is fully focused on the critical work of keeping our facilities open and our students and faculty safe through the ongoing pandemic.

Under Jim's leadership, the SUNY system stayed open throughout the pandemic while other major state university systems across the country and colleges across New York closed and went fully remote. Working hand in hand with our faculty, staff, and students he implemented groundbreaking COVID protocols that led to the administration of 2.9 million COVID tests on campuses and nearly universal vaccination among faculty, students, and staff. As a result, SUNY has consistently had one of the lowest positivity rates in the country—far below the New York statewide rate. That work set the stage for SUNY classes to be 70 percent in person this semester—a number that will grow significantly in the new year.

Under Jim's leadership, SUNY has eliminated barriers to higher education by waiving college application fees for low-income students, launched the SUNY on-line training center offering free certifications and classes as an entryway to college degrees, tackled food insecurity by auto-enrolling students in the SNAP program, invested in child care for students and staff, expanded mental health services across our campuses, created SUNY's first-ever Pre-Medical Opportunity Program—a program that opens the door to medical school to students from underrepresented communities, and helped foster a comprehensive diversity and inclusion plan.

As we head into another surge in COVID cases Jim and the Board of Trustees are focused on keeping our campuses open, securing additional investment for SUNY to meet New York State's workforce demand, and expanding innovation to continue to drive economic development across New York State. We have challenging days ahead and believe Jim Malatras, as Chancellor of the State University of New York, remains the right leader to help us meet that challenge."

We don't see any examples of leadership in the statement that could not have been accomplished by any university administrator with ample state and federal government assistance as all universities have had during the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, the late Friday release of the statement and Malatras' formal apology smacks of the "Friday news dump" practice by politicians to release bad news late on Fridays whenever they want to minimize the amount of attention it gets in the media. The timing alone does not suggest confidence in Malatras' actual leadership abilities - it suggests instead the Cuomo loyalists on the board are circling their wagons to protect their interests.

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