The UVA Board of Visitors will meet at 3 p.m. today to vote on whether to reinstate Teresa Sullivan as University president.
The University community has overwhelmingly opposed Sullivan’s unexpected ousting and held a vigil outside the campus’ Rotunda in support last night.
"We're cautiously optimistic, but we think things are very uncertain right now," said George Cohen, chairman of the faculty senate, which has led the fight to reinstate Sullivan.
If the board does not reach decision on the future of the University’s leadership by Wednesday, Gov. Bob McDonnell has said he will ask them all to resign.
The board meeting is open to the public, but the board will likely move to a closed session at some point.
The Washington Post charts out which way each of the 16-board members are expected to vote (Vice rector Mark Kington resigned June 19 amid the backlash.)
According to the paper’s predictions, six are expected to vote in favor of her reinstatement and five against it. Four people are considered potential swing votes.
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Helen Dragas, the head of the board, is among those likely to oppose Sullivan’s reinstatement.
Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak asks if we're glued to this UVA saga out of concern for higher education or if we’re actually just interested in watching two women going head to head.
Or really, is it just the woman-on-woman smackdown that makes us all keep tuning in?
It has come down to a clash of two successful women, and they are both great characters, both firsts in their positions.
The woman doing the firing is a sharp-profiled, sharp-suited corporate leader who has busted chops in the male-dominated world of construction — “The Devil Wears Prada” and a hard hat. Her name, Helen E. Dragas, even sounds Hollywood. She is the university’s first female rector, and the classic Queen Bee.
The woman who was fired — and whose reinstatement students and faculty are rallying behind — is U-Va.’s first female president, Teresa Sullivan. She is a beloved, bespectacled professor and respected scholar in a softer discipline — sociology — and was admired for her quiet advocacy of women and open-door policy toward students. She zips around campus in her Smart car and teaches a sociology class.
Snape vs. Dumbledore, but female.
* A group pushing for a casino at National Harbor is lobbying the public by buying television ads in Baltimore and hosting a rally in Annapolis, according to the Baltimore Sun.
The group, Building Trades for the National Harbor, wants Gov. Martin O’Malley to call a special session so legislators can pass a law allowing a casino at the National Harbor development in Prince George’s County.
Political negotiations to make this casino happen hit a road bump last week when a state panel considering whether Maryland should allow a sixth casino and the addition of table games failed to reach a consensus.
* A member of businessman Jeffrey Thompson’s network of political donors seems to be connected to the drug trial of Marion Barry, according to WAMU.
One of the prosecutors’ key witnesses in former Mayor Barry’s trial for drug use and perjury in 1990 was an Iranian-born restaurant owner named Hassan Mohammadi, who testified that he supplied Barry with cocaine on more than 30 occasions.
Campaign finance reports show Mohammadi and his family and businesses partners have donated more than $25,000 to D.C. politicians over the past few years, including Mayor Vincent Gray and former Mayor Adrian Fenty.
These donations are connected to Thompson’s network of donors and donations, which are currently under investigations because they were linked to a set of suspicious money order contributions to D.C. officials.
* The Metropolitan Police Department received a more than $600,000 federal grant from the office of Community Oriented Policing Services to hire five veterans seeking careers in law enforcement as officers, according to DCist.
* The District is reviewing its sign regulations after the Federal Highway Administration warned officials that it’s out of compliance and it could lose 10 percent of federal transportation funding—or $15 million annually—if things aren’t updated, according to Housing Complex.
* The Supreme Court ruled on the immigration case Arizona v. United States Monday and the opinions of Virginia officials differed—albeit largely along party lines—on the ruling.
The ruling invalidated some key provisions of Arizona’s now infamous immigration law.
Democratic Senate hopeful Tim Kaine wrote in a press release:
"I have always believed that truly comprehensive immigration reform will require all sides to come together to strike a balance to secure our borders and retain and attract the best and brightest talent to contribute to our economy and our communities. Unfortunately, while today’s ruling by the Supreme Court struck down many of the troubling provisions of the Arizona law, it also encourages a patchwork system of local policies that will not address our national immigration challenges. I continue to support comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level as well as the DREAM Act.
Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is running for governor, had this to say, VIA RTD:
With the federal government's reluctance to enforce many of its own immigration laws, this decision today seems to leave states few tools to protect their own borders.”
