EDITORIAL:

For too long, regents have run amok, showing no respect for Nevada voters

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Yasmina Chavez

A view of the Nevada System of Higher Education building Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021.

Wed, Oct 27, 2021 (2 a.m.)

Almost everybody has a boss, even elected leaders like the members of the Nevada Board of Regents.

For the regents, that boss is you, Nevada voters. You hire and fire the regents with your vote and your recall power. They answer to you, like board members in a corporation answer to shareholders.

And right now, the regents owe you some answers on how they’re dealing with Chancellor Melody Rose’s hostile-workplace complaint against Regent Chair Cathy McAdoo and Vice Chair Patrick Carter.

The situation appears to have paralyzed the statewide oversight structure amid a breakdown of communications among Rose, McAdoo and Carter, and disagreement among the regents about how to proceed. In the weeks since Rose lodged her complaint on Oct. 6, the regents have canceled or postponed all three of the meetings that were on their calendar.

Think about this: If you were a business supervisor and one of your departments had quit functioning amid serious allegations of a toxic work environment, you’d demand to know what was being done to rectify the situation.

With a couple of exceptions, though, the 13 members of the board, who are elected by district, are acting as if they answer to no one.

Thus far, Regents John T. Moran and Amy Carvalho have been the only board members calling for open meetings about how to move forward and maintain effective governance of the system. But neither has been able to draw the five total votes needed to get a meeting on the calendar.

As for the rest of the regents, only four responded to requests for comment by the Sun, saying they supported an independent investigation of Rose’s complaints.

The rest — Lois Tarkanian, Byron Brooks, Carol Del Carlo, Mark Doubrava and Donald Sylvantee McMichael Sr. — have ducked our questions.

The upshot is that 11 regents have said little or nothing about the situation.

And, meanwhile, the regents have maintained a business-as-usual approach at a time that is anything but usual. McAdoo and Carter have rejected calls by Moran to step down from their officer positions while the investigation plays out, and the regents as a whole won’t support a public meeting to discuss what they’re up to, how they are handling the alleged toxic environment and what they plan to do about it. Instead, the media have had to draw out details in bits and pieces.

The regents are within their bounds to discuss the details of Rose’s complaint with their attorney behind closed doors, as they’re scheduled to do today. But when the investigation is complete, they must share the completed report with the public once it becomes available.

Unfortunately, the regents have a history of condoning discriminatory behavior toward women — or, as Rose describes it in her complaint, maintaining an “old boys’ club.” There are numerous examples, but it was illustrative last year when not a single board member lifted a finger against the board’s special counsel for demeaning then-Regent Lisa Levine over engaging in what he called “child-speak.” For such a comment to be brushed aside in the year 2020 is astonishing.

The regents need reforms, and not just in the need to create a better environment for women.

They’re not nearly transparent enough, especially in policing bad behavior on the board and holding each other accountable.

Thank goodness, though, that at least one community organization — the Vegas Chamber — is putting the regents on notice that the public is paying attention. The chamber issued a statement Tuesday calling for McAdoo and Carter to relinquish their officer positions during the course of the investigation, and to resign their seats on the board altogether if the allegations are proven to be true.

“Unfortunately, the Nevada System of Higher Education, under the leadership of the Board of Regents, has been plagued with myriad questionable actions and behaviors for many years, undermining the public institutions of higher learning in our state,” the chamber stated, adding later that, “It is time for true governance and culture reform of (the Nevada System of Higher Education) and the Board of Regents for the sake of all Nevadans and the future of our state.”

We couldn’t agree more, which is why we strongly urge lawmakers to resurrect the 2020 ballot question that would have allowed for a restructuring of the regents. That question narrowly failed statewide despite passing in Clark County, but the complaints behind it remain alive and well. Rose’s complaint only further underscores the need to bring the regents to accountability and remind many of them that they answer to the people of Nevada.

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