A split Oregon State University Board of Trustees voted Wednesday night to place new President F. King Alexander on probation through June 1 after reports that he tolerated a culture of sexual misconduct and harassment while president of Louisiana State University.
The trustees also voted to commission an independent review of Alexander’s tenure at Louisiana State University that would look specifically at the accuracy of a report that was highly critical of Alexander’s actions there.
The trustees considered for more than six hours whether to discipline or dismiss Alexander before reaching a split decision. Two of the board’s 13 members dissented but didn’t publicly explain what action they felt the university should take.
After the vote, Alexander told the trustees he would prepare an action plan to repair relationships on campus as they requested.
State support of higher education had been repeatedly slashed to the point that some LSU employees had gone 11 years without a salary increase, he said.
The so-called Husch Blackwell report claims Alexander refused to fire LSU’s powerful head football coach, Les Miles, even after he learned of what was going on in the football program. Miles liked to classify women into “AM girls and PM girls,” and that he we wanted PM girls – blonde and attractive – working for him.
The Husch Blackwell report, named for the outside law firm LSU commissioned to write it, said it encountered deep “frustration and disappointment” within the LSU community in the university’s response to repeated allegations of sexual misconduct.