Turmoil in UML nursing school

AS QUESTIONS over the reasons for the removal of Umass Lowell Solomont School of Nursing Dean Leslie Neal-boylan made national news via Foxnews.com and other outlets earlier this month, the university’s response was an exercise in deafening silence.

And that’s not sitting well with much of anyone.

All of the stories about Neal-boylan’s removal question, but don’t say for sure, whether she was fired for saying “BLACK LIVES MATTER, but also, EVERYONE’S LIFE MATTERS” in an email to nursing students regarding nationwide protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.

The email was shared in early June on Twitter by a user named Haley, who expressed concern about it. The university’s official Twitter account responded, thanked Haley for bringing the email to everyone’s attention, and said the university believes black lives matter as it referenced a supportive statement from Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney.

Neal-boylan then sent another email to nursing students apologizing for the first email.

Skip ahead a month, and the exchange was picked up by a publication called Campusreform.com, which broke the story that Neal-boylan was fired, possibly over the email.

Haley’s tweet was quoted in the Campusreform.com story, and was also quoted by FoxNews.com and several other publications that quickly picked up the story amid a nationwide debate over “cancel culture.”

The university addressed the situation in a vaguely-worded statement first released to Campusreform.com in late June, and stood by that statement even as stories spread nationwide suggesting Neal-boylan may have been removed due to the email.

The statement says Neal-boylan’s employment ended on June 19, after she was removed as dean and offered a position on the faculty, since she was tenured (even though she had only been hired 10 months earlier). The statement says NealBoylan declined to join the faculty, but provides no further specifics.

“As with all such employment decisions, it was made in the best interests of the university and its students,” the statement says. “Although we are not able to discuss specifics of a personnel matter, it would be incorrect to assume any statement by Dr. Neal-boylan was the cause of that decision.”

Not terribly specific, especially when Campusreform.com, also obtained a letter from Neal-boylan to Chancellor Jacqui Moloney and Provost Joseph Hartman that expresses deep concern about the