The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Downey: Olens failed to defend KSU students
New university president Sam Olens sent the wrong message to the campus community with his handling of pregame protests.
While you couldn’t see the five Kennesaw State University cheerleaders who took a knee to protest racism and injustice, they shared the stage Thursday as Sam Olens received the official title of KSU president. The half-empty stands, the absent faculty members who boycotted the investiture and the dozen students who knelt at the ceremony as the national anthem played spoke of their presence.
Outside, the impact of the young women who knelt in silence at the Sept. 30 football game was even more apparent. Two hundred KSU students took a knee in protest as investiture guests mingled at an outdoor reception. The students raised signs: “Hey, Olens, Your bigot is showing,” and “Protect our first amendment rights.”
When news broke a year ago that the Board of Regents intended to name Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens to the presidency of KSU, faculty and students expressed concern about a politician leading an institution of higher education. Olens had also been a former two-term chairman of Cobb County’s board
of commissioners.
Turns out those fears were justified.
In text exchanges The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained last week through an open-records request, two conservative Cobb officials plot to stop the cheerleaders from kneeling. Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren and state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, even while acknowledging the legality of the cheerleaders’ protest, boast they pressured Olens to keep them off the field during the national anthem.
Ehrhart, whose usual target for political witch hunts is Georgia
Tech, texted Warren that Olens “had to be dragged there but with you and I pushing he had no choice. Thanks for your patriotism my friend.”
In another text, Warren wrote, “Not letting the cheerleaders come out on the field until after national anthem was one of the recommendations that Earl and I gave him!”
The text messages undermine Olens’ contention the athletic department took the cheerleaders off the field in a decision unrelated to their protest. Initially, that
was Olens’ only comment; he did not meet with the cheerleaders and canceled interviews with the AJC.
However, the release of the Ehrhart/Warren text messages spurred two immediate actions: The Board of Regents said it would investigate KSU, and Olens broke his silence.
In a statement, Olens said, “Following the Sept. 30 football game, the Department of Athletics leadership informed me that they were making a change to the pregame activities, which involved the spirit squad. This was the only conversation I had about any changes involving the cheerleaders and mascot. The call I received from Sheriff Warren came after I was notified of the department’s decision. In hindsight, I regret how the events over the past two weeks have unfolded and admit that the circumstances could have been handled better. I believe that a university should be a marketplace of ideas, encouraging free expression and open dialogue. To that end, I welcome the opportunity to meet with the cheerleaders and any student who wishes to participate in a discussion about how we can work together to continue to make KSU a university of which we are all proud.”
Messages exchanged within KSU reveal that Olens feared the political outcry, texting a vice president of student life, “Several cheerleaders... kneeled for the anthem ... Not good ... Much fallout.” Tammy DeMel, KSU’s assistant vice president for communications, also messaged concerns to the vice president: “Problem is, all the cheerleaders who knelt from what I understand are African American, so that could open a larger campus issue if you tell them not to kneel. (Olens) is fired up — wonder if he got a call from someone else?”
The KSU messages indicate Olens wanted to sit down with the cheerleaders, but was advised against it. That would signal to me he needs better advisers.
In his failure to defend the cheerleaders and in distancing himself from the decision to keep them off the field, Olens missed an opportunity to make all students on his campus feel respected and valued. He showed the good ol’ boy system is alive and well at KSU, and that politics will outweigh principles.
When Olens was being considered for the presidency, Humayun Zafar, president of the Faculty Senate, cited the faculty’s role in KSU’s evolution from a junior college to a research institution, saying, “Shared governance allows us to have potentially tough conversations with the administration, which then results in us in truly being united.”
So much for shared governance and unity. What Olens has brought to KSU now is divisiveness and mistrust.