Give SUNY Boss the Boot
SUNY trustees threw a life preserver to scandal-scarred Chancellor James Malatras on Friday, issuing a statement of support. Gov. Hochul needs to reverse their thinking.
The move came after Attorney General Tish James’ latest Cuomo-administration document dump — hundreds of pages of e-mail transcripts and related materials — focused a damning light on Malatras. Now more than ever, the man must go. Not that he ever should’ve gotten the $450,000 SUNY gig to begin with. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo foisted him on the university’s trustees in 2020 as a reward for political services loyally rendered — and the board, to its discredit, meekly complied.
On the merits, of course, Malatras’ name wouldn’t have appeared on any list of qualified candidates. His academic résumé can best be described as thin gruel; he headed up a government-backed think tank, then became president of the respectable, but hardly rigorous, Empire State College.
Malatras was a key participant in Cuomo’s notorious nursing-home COVID coverup; he helped write the ex-gov’s outrageous $5.1 million COVID “leadership” memoir; and, as director of state operations, he was a ranking figure in an administration rocked by economic-development scandals. All in all, an anemic résumé for a fellow responsible for a 64-campus, 450,000-student university system.
And then there’s the matter of Malatras’ character — or, to be more precise, his lack of it. That much leaps out of the AG’s treasure trove of administration e-mails and text messages.
Laid out for all to see are snark-laced, middleschool-level exchanges between key Cuomo officials, particularly those relating to criticism of Cuomo by sexual-harassment accuser Lindsey Boylan.
Boylan, a former economic-development executive, had said the governor ran a workplace that was “toxic, especially for women.”
“Malatras to Boylan: Go f - - k yourself,” Malatras texted administration colleagues, while threatening to “release some of her cray [crazy] emails” — not an idle threat, it seems, given that Boylan’s supposedly confidential personnel file subsequently was leaked to the press.
Clearly Malatras contributed the toxicity. He was exactly the kind of arrogant, inside Team Cuomo player Hochul gave the impression she’d be ousting.
True, she lacks the direct authority to fire Malatras. But she can apply sufficient pressure on SUNY trustees to force a dismissal. And that’s exactly what she needs to do. Without delay.