Editorial: Revisit the two firings at college

Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2003 | 8:47 a.m.

There is a movement within the Board of Regents to revisit last week's firings of CCSN President Ron Remington and administrator John Cummings. We hope it gains enough momentum to succeed. After 16 hours of discussion behind closed doors, the board voted 7-6 Thursday to make the Community College of Southern Nevada president a member of the faculty, effectively firing him from the position he has held since 2001. By the same vote, the regents ousted Cummings from his administrative post at CCSN, which included acting as the college's lobbyist at the Legislature.

If Remington and Cummings are to be the subjects of a discipline hearing, the hearing should be fair and free from the valid questions now being raised about the board and the process it chose to take such drastic action. The board acted with no regard for due process, which in our view makes its decision fatally flawed from that standpoint alone. Neither Remington nor Cummings had a chance to offer any explanations or put any of the allegations into context. The public also has very little information about what motivated the board's vote.

It is known that the investigation originated after Cummings attempted to fire an entry-level employee, whose hiring had been recommended by Assemblyman Wendell Williams, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee. The employee, Topazia Jones, kept her job after Williams and Chancellor Jane Nichols intervened on her behalf. A self-described "special assistant" to Williams during the 2003 Legislature, Jones alleged that Cummings attempted to fire her after she refused to work on a bill to make CCSN a four-year college. From that point it gets very fuzzy -- the regents simply said the firings were for insubordination and violation of university policy. Some regents say the firings were for circumventing the board in trying to get legislation passed and others hint there were other reasons.

Meanwhile, many faculty members at the community college are expressing outrage at the board's decision, which was primarily based on the findings of a private investigator. University officials who attended the closed-door session say one regent, Tom Kirkpatrick, was allowed to give testimony against Cummings and then allowed to cast a vote against him. The board needs to revisit this whole issue and be a lot more open about it. We believe in strong discipline where warranted, but the board in this case has failed to even state its case, let alone prove it.