On March 1, the University System of Georgia Board of Regents named former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue as its chancellor. Perdue will begin his duties as the 14th chancellor on April 1, according to a press release from USG.
Perdue will not improve the state of education as chancellor – he will only ruin it.
Students understand the risk of having Perdue as chancellor and have vocalized their opposition. He has never been an ally for students and has shown no change in these attitudes.
Perdue’s only experience in education has been defunding public education as governor. During his tenure from 2003 to 2011, his cuts to education totaled more than $1.5 billion.
As part of the cuts, Perdue altered the HOPE scholarship. He changed the B-average requirement to a required 3.0 grade-point average, despite that, at the time, nearly one-third of college freshmen with the scholarship did not meet this requirement. Perdue also eliminated the payment for student fees and a $300 allowance for books.
All of these changes made HOPE less accessible and made college less affordable. Students should be worried about a chancellor who began the dismantlement of their scholarships, and they have a right to revoke support.
Furthermore, Perdue has a past of advocating for and implementing racist policy. Perdue campaigned for governor on allowing a vote to bring back the Confederate battle flag as part of the state flag. While he switched his position on the notorious battle flag, he allowed Georgians to vote to incorporate the national flag of the Confederacy, which includes the “stars-and-bars” pattern, into the current flag of Georgia.
As the leader of USG, the chancellor should serve as a role model for students across the state. Nearly 60% of K-12 students in Georgia are people of color. Georgian students deserve a chancellor that will aid in the state’s diversity and inclusion of racial minorities – not one who has compromised with white supremacists in allowing a racist symbol onto the state flag.
Abeeha Bhatti is a senior at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology. Her college decision making process has become more difficult due to Perdue’s leadership.
“It’s definitely scary,” Bhatti said about Perdue’s history of racism. “I feel like Perdue does not support people like me. I’m a first-generation college student, and worry that if I do end up choosing a USG school, I will not have the support that I need.”
This raises the question: why was Perdue chosen? At first, he was not. After his initial nomination, students and faculty at universities in Georgia began mobilizing against the possibility of his chancellorship. The Students Against Sonny campaign collected more than a thousand signatures on an online petition. Due to the lack of support, the Regents, who have the final choice on who is chancellor, put the search for the next chancellor on pause.
Following this pause, Brian Kemp began reshuffling the Regents. He replaced members with political allies, including key donors to his campaign, and announced two other members would not be able to hold office due to redistricting. After the changes, Kemp was successful in forcing Perdue’s nomination through.
Julian Fortuna, a freshmen international affairs and sociology major, organized with the Students Against Sonny campaign.
“I’m disappointed,” Fortuna said regarding the Regents’ decision for chancellor. “We expect, and students have a right to expect, better from our university leadership. We expect that they will be committed to academic excellence, committed to experience and committed to investing in our education.”
While the chancellor is not an elected position, Georgians still have the power to make their voices heard if they are not satisfied with USG. If you want the USG to remain nonpartisan, vote for politicians who actually want to keep politics out of education and put students first.
Perdue had an entire political career to prove that he could lead the 26 universities that make up the USG. He has shown that he cannot. He has only proven that he will push to underfund education, strip life-changing scholarships away from students and dispel any efforts to create a more inclusive environment at universities. If Perdue continues to fail Georgia in education, students must take action and make their voices heard in November.
