Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

EDITORIAL:

Lack of oversight, accountability continues to plague higher education in Nevada

NSHE Board of Regents Approve UNLV Medical Education Building Project

Wade Vandervort

Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents Chief of Staff to the Board Dean Gould speaks during a special meeting, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020.

The chief of staff for the Nevada Board of Regents should resign or be fired over the appallingly sexist, patronizing remark he made last week to Regent Lisa Levine.

Instead the official, Dean Gould, was allowed to issue a Donald Trump-like non-apology in which he claimed to be a victim. That’s Nevada’s higher education overseers for you — a group with a history of bad behavior and complete disdain for accountability.

If you missed the viral video and news coverage, here’s what Gould said to Levine during Friday’s special meeting of the regents: “I’m going to ask you to please mute yourself. I don’t want to man-speak but I will have to if you continue to child-speak, so please stop.”

A comment like that wouldn’t be appropriate in any situation, and certainly not in a meeting involving policymaking for Nevada’s universities and colleges. It’s stupefying that except for one of Levine’s fellow regents, John T. Moran, no one upbraided Gould. This kind of “Mad Men”-era misogyny has no place in our state.

Keep in mind that Gould, who also serves as special counsel to the regents, was addressing a member of the board he answers to. The 13-member board of regents, which is elected, oversees NSHE in a way similar to how a K-12 school board manages a superintendent’s office. Given that Gould is a non-elected administrator who serves the board, his comment was akin to a public school administrator lashing out against an elected board member. He was grossly out of line.

It also reflected badly on Nevada that Gould’s comment came during a discussion about federal Title IX anti-discrimination regulations. At issue were proposed rule changes by NSHE to bring the system into compliance with the Trump administration’s rollback of Obama-era federal regulations designed to protect victims of sexual harassment. The new regulations, championed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, include raising the burden of proof for accusers and barring investigations of accusations that occur overseas, such as in study abroad programs.

Levine dissented to NSHE’s proposed changes, saying essentially that they would provide cover for predators. She was right.

This is an explicit attempt by the Trump administration to hold state education funds hostage unless they roll back sane and necessary protections for victims of harassment. It’s disgusting that the regents’ own chief of staff and special counsel met this attempt with discriminatory language.

Levine also took exception to the timing of Friday’s discussion, which came just a week before the deadline imposed by the feds for compliance from the state. Given that Nevada risks losing $400 million in federal funding for higher ed if it fails to comply, Levine contended the issue should have been brought up sooner. Again, she was right.

This was seemingly all too much for Gould, who apparently doesn’t think it’s a woman’s place to question the wisdom of old white men like himself.

Yet he’s faced no formal repercussions for his comment, just backlash on social media and criticism from several of Nevada’s leaders in Washington, D.C., and Carson City. Moran, to his credit, commented during the meeting that Gould’s remarks were “not necessary,” but otherwise nobody took issue.

Instead, Gould sent out a statement through NSHE saying Levine had accused him of “mansplaining” during an earlier discussion, which he thought was inappropriate. He claimed Levine tried to disrupt procedure, which caused him to become “frustrated at her lack of decorum.”

“In retrospect, I should not have stooped to her level of acrimony,” the statement read.

No, Mr. Gould, what you really shouldn’t have done was to act like a clod.

Gould, being an attorney, surely could have found a proper legal or procedural avenue to address whatever concerns he had about Levine’s “mansplaining” comment.

But now he’s given NSHE and the state a black eye. And except for Levine and Moran, no one in the system seems particularly interested in doing anything about it.

Regents Chairman Mark Doubrava sent a letter to his colleagues Sunday mentioning “an employer-employee issue that deserves careful and thoughtful evaluation” but didn’t mention any specific action. He said only that the regents and staff should treat each other respectfully.

It’s certainly not the first time NSHE and other members of the regents have sullied the system and then refused to police themselves.

It happened when former Chancellor Dan Klaich got caught submitting a falsified document to Nevada lawmakers but was allowed to resign with a golden parachute in 2016. It happened last year when the regents took no formal action against Regent Kevin Page after emails obtained by the Sun revealed he had abused his authority by sharing confidential NSHE documents outside the system and demanding preferential treatment for a relative of his who was attending the university several years ago.

It happened when NSHE allowed a central-office staff member who had been fired after being accused of sexual harassment in 2013 — specifically, that he masturbated loudly in his office on several occasions — to be rehired at UNLV. After the situation was revealed, that staff member is no longer part of the system.

Levine, who was appointed by Gov. Steve Sisolak in June after the death of Regent Sam Lieberman, has shown she isn’t afraid to hold people accountable and have uncomfortable discussions. Good for her. The system needs more brave, responsible people like her.

“It wasn’t just me who was shut down,” she wrote on Twitter, “it was every victim and survivor of sexual violence whose voice should have been heard and who I was fighting for.”

Sadly, as Gould’s comment suggested, she’s having to fight the system to do it.

Fortunately, Nevadans have an opportunity to rein in the regents, via a ballot question in November that would pave the way for the board to be broken up and for NSHE to be restructured. A yes vote on Question 1 in the fall would amend the state constitution to address ambiguity over whether the regents and NSHE are an independent, fourth branch of government. If the question passes, lawmakers could place NSHE under the oversight of the governor’s office or the state Legislature.

That’s exactly what should happen. This system is an embarrassment to Nevada, one that steadfastly refuses to clean up its own house when dealing with the likes of Page, Klaich and now Gould.

It’s up to voters to step in and get things under control. In the meantime, Gould needs to go.

How can any woman who has to deal with Nevada’s higher education system — student, teacher, staff, contractor, etc. — believe they’re being dealt with in good faith with individuals like this not only in place, but unaccountable?