What The Hell America!

Gregg Bishop takes pride in his alma mater.

Florida A&M University is the first historically Black college or university to offer students a nationally accredited journalism program. It’s also one of the top producers of Black graduates with doctoral degrees in science and engineering, and sits in the top five of the Black land-grant universities that generate the most annual economic impact for their graduates. The school has been the highest-ranked public HBCU for six consecutive years.

From its academic rigor to its campus culture, FAMU is “unmatched,” Bishop added. Plus, the school accepted him — a former college dropout with a 1.9 grade point average. After working in the tech industry for seven years, he returned to college, graduating from FAMU in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

“I have a special love for FAMU because FAMU gave me the opportunity to get my bachelor’s degree. Then, I went to Florida State University and got my master’s degree. Because of that, I was able to have over a decade-long career in government in New York City,” said Bishop, a member of FAMU’s School of Journalism and Graphic Communication Board of Visitors.

These experiences have made Bishop protective of FAMU, especially at a moment when the university and other HBCUs across the South are struggling to find leadership that enjoys the confidence of their respective communities. Tensions bubbled over last week when alumni criticized one of the finalists to be FAMU’s next president.

Marva Johnson, the group vice president of state government affairs at Charter Communications, is one of four people in the running to be the university’s next leader. Many alumni, including Bishop, don’t believe that Johnson, an ally of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has the experience needed to lead the institution’s 14 schools and colleges.

While some worry that she would push DeSantis’ anti-diversity agenda, the biggest concern, according to Bishop, is that she won’t last long in the position, a situation that would only fuel instability. The university’s next president, he argued, ought to be selected based not on political ties but on commitment to the FAMU community.

“We shouldn’t be seen as a training ground for someone who doesn’t have any academic experience,” Bishop told Capital B. “Yes, she may have business experience, but for us, it’s academics first.”

Johnson hasn’t responded to Capital B’s request for comment.

The three other people being considered are Donald Palm, FAMU’s executive vice president and chief operating officer; Gerald Hector, the University of Central Florida’s senior vice president for administration and finance; and Rondall Allen, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s provost and vice president for academic affairs.

FAMU’s National Alumni Association has endorsed Palm as its preferred candidate. After finalists participate in on-campus interviews conducted by the school’s Board of Trustees this week, the trustees will submit their selection to the 17-member Florida Board of Governors. The board oversees the state’s public university system and will make the final decision.

Students and alumni are speaking out because they want to make sure that the people in charge of hiring think long and hard about protecting the university’s future, Erica Stallworth, a 2002 FAMU graduate, told Capital B.

“I’m a second-generation HBCU graduate, and I’m proud to be a Rattler,” she said, referring to the school’s mascot. “We need someone who understands — and wants to understand — our culture.”

“More than just a school”

Others in the FAMU community share Bishop and Stallworth’s concerns.

Elijah Hooks, a senior political science major, has started a petition that’s received more than 12,000 signatures. The document describes Johnson, because of her ties to DeSantis, as someone who is out of step with a school that values “teaching our full history” and who would be “learning on the job.”

“To me, FAMU represents the epitome of Black excellence,” Hooks, the co-chair of the grassroots coalition FAMU Deserves Better, told Capital B. “It’s a place where we cultivate Black leaders across every field — from health and engineering, to politics and the arts.”

For Hooks and many of his peers, having a president who embodies these ideals is non-negotiable. The person in this role is “more than a figurehead,” he said — they also “set the tone” for the rest of the school.

Though Johnson previously served on the Florida State Board of Education, her experience is rooted in K-12 policy and corporate governance. She also was an elector for Donald Trump in 2020, and has been appointed to several state positions by Republican governors.

Like Bishop, Stallworth, and Hooks, Hannah Kirby, a senior broadcast journalism major, believes that the next FAMU president must be someone who understands student life at the university, which she calls her “dream school.”

“Undergraduate students are the heart and soul of this campus,” she told Capital B. “If the president doesn’t understand or support students, that’s a recipe for disaster.”

After attending the open forums for the presidential finalists, Kirby said that Johnson’s lack of academic leadership experience stood out to her.

“Going from lobbying to running a university is a huge leap,” she said. “FAMU is more than just a school. It is a cultural institution that shapes communities.”

One of the university’s most famous alumni, the producer Will Packer, also has denounced Johnson. He said in a video he posted on Instagram, “Right this very minute, a group of activist Republicans is trying to put in the highest position of power someone who is solidly and objectively unqualified for it.”

Packer, whose credits include the 2017 movie Girls Trip, posted the video following a roiling town hall last week. FAMU alumni, boosters, and others criticized Johnson as a “political plant” and threw their support behind Palm.

“What we cannot allow is a hostile takeover by someone who is aligned with a party that has loudly and proudly espoused ideologies that attack diversity and diverse institutions, attacked equitable economics, and attacked inclusive principles — the exact pillars that institutions like FAMU were built upon,” Packer, who didn’t respond to Capital B’s request for comment, said in the video.

Alan Levine, the vice chair of the Florida Board of Governors, criticized the backlash to Johnson, calling it “unfair, uninformed, and not helpful to the process.”

“It’s odd to me that an organized effort is underway to target a candidate before she has been given an opportunity to be interviewed by the Board of Trustees in an open forum,” he told the Tallahassee Democrat.

“The Board of Trustees should focus on the qualities of their candidates, and decide which candidate they believe they, as a board, will be able to partner with to deliver the results the BOG, legislature, governor, and most importantly, students expect,” Levine added.

A problem beyond Florida

FAMU isn’t the only HBCU scrambling to find qualified leadership.

At the beginning of the month, Marcus Thompson suddenly resigned as the president of Mississippi’s Jackson State University. The school has had nine presidents over the past 15 years, and alumni — and Gov. Tate Reeves — are demanding greater transparency in its search and vetting process.

Meanwhile, in March, Georgia’s Albany State University named Robert Scott as its next president. But this announcement followed a contentious period: Earlier this year, alumni and their supporters collected more than 900 signatures to make clear that they didn’t want Lawrence Drake, who was the university’s interim president, to assume a permanent role. The petitioners argued that Drake, who worked at the Coca-Cola Co. for 21 years, wasn’t qualified.

Together, these developments underscore the wider leadership challenges facing HBCUs.

In a letter, Florida’s state NAACP chapter expressed “profound concern” about Johnson’s being included in the pool of candidates and threatened to “take all appropriate advocacy and legal actions” over the selection process.

Deveron Gibbons, the chair of the presidential search committee, has defended the process and the qualifications of all four candidates.

The committee “has conducted a transparent, inclusive process and identified four exceptional candidates to move forward,” Gibbons, who’s also the vice chair of FAMU’s Board of Trustees, said in a statement. “Each brings a strong record of leadership.

Whatever happens, Bishop wants others to get involved in their alumni associations, donate to their universities, and boost their civic engagement in everything from parent–teacher associations to state politics. 

He hopes that the Board of Trustees “does the right thing,” and he predicts that more alumni and students will speak out against Johnson.

“She worked in the private sector. She should be the next CEO of a company, not the next CEO of a university,” Bishop said. “What you’re hearing from the alumni community is that to have someone with zero experience shepherd one of the flagship universities of Florida … it’s concerning.”