Questions remain at MSU as board retains president

The Missouri State University Board of Governors is standing by its beleaguered president, but questions remain in the wake of the body’s decision to retain him amid a lawsuit in Utah and a no-confidence vote by faculty at the Springfield university.

Following a fourth closed meeting last month, the board voted unanimously on Nov. 22 to keep President Richard “Biff” Williams in his position.

“This decision was made after thoughtful consideration of the viewpoints heard from all constituencies,” a statement from the board reads. “Missouri State University has very high expectations for our leaders personally and professionally, and President Williams is working with the board on actions that he will take as part of his commitment to strengthening relationships across our campus community.”

Williams is accused in a Nov. 7 lawsuit with other defendants of creating a hostile and retaliatory work environment and violating Title IX protections at Utah Tech University, for which he served as president before coming to MSU. Williams became MSU’s president on July 1.

The board’s statement – and similar communications sent to the MSU community – did not provide a reason for the decision to keep Williams in his role, nor did it address specific allegations in the lawsuit and what they might mean for the president’s tenure at MSU.

“The university does not comment on personnel matters,” said Emily Letterman, public relations strategist at MSU, in response to questions from Springfield Business Journal.

Williams and board Chair Lynn Parman declined interviews through Letterman.

Jeff Schrag, a businessperson who is running for Springfield mayor next year, represents the district covering Springfield on the MSU board. He declined to comment when reached by SBJ.

Board members are appointed by the Missouri governor with the advice and consent of the state Senate. Schrag told SBJ members agreed that the chair would be the sole representative to speak for the board. There has been no indication from MSU officials that an explanation of the public entity’s decision is forthcoming.

University relations
Local attorney and alum Tom Strong, a major donor to MSU, said he doubts donor relations have been harmed in the long term at the university.

“I hope not,” he said, speaking from Hammons Tower, where his Strong Law PC firm is located. “I really doubt that it will.”

Strong, who this year donated $5 million to MSU to help with its athletics transition to Conference USA, said the allegations in the Utah lawsuit have not been proven in court.

“Everyone is entitled to a fair trial,” Strong said. “Whether or not they win in court, they should not be convicted by as-yet-unproven allegations.”

Strong said repercussions beyond the short term are unlikely.

“This school has over 25,000 students. We’re too big to be badly damaged by a trivial incident like this,” Strong, a 1952 graduate of the university, said. “I think that there’s very little damage at this point and zero damage weeks or a few months away.”

Wes Pratt, who served as MSU’s chief diversity officer 2016-22, had a different view.

“I know one thing: It’s not a good look at all,” he said.

Pratt said he is most concerned that the search committee appeared to have been taken by surprise by the news.

“It blows my mind the search committee didn’t know about the allegations; the board didn’t know about the allegations,” he said.

Williams was the unanimous choice of the MSU board to replace Clif Smart, who retired from the university this year after leading it since 2011.

He was chosen over finalists John Jasinski, MSU provost since 2022, and Roger Thompson, vice president for student services and enrollment management at the University of Oregon. The 20-member MSU Presidential Search Committee, chaired by Springfield banker Rob Fulp, regional manager of Great Southern Bank, received 48 applications for the president role through an in-house national search. Fulp declined to comment for this article.

Suzanne Shaw, MSU’s vice president of marketing and communications, said university officials were unaware of the situation laid out in the Utah lawsuit prior to Williams’ hiring.

“The board was not aware of the situation when they offered the position to President Williams,” Shaw previously told SBJ. “In mid-June, he informed the chair of the board of governors that there was an issue. The board only recently became aware of the extent of the circumstances.”

Pratt said he has served on numerous search committees, and a basic question is if there is anything in the candidate’s background that could bring embarrassment to the institution.

“For that question not to be asked, or if it was?” he said. “I don’t know what to think about that.”

Pratt said he had a meeting with Williams and a group of community leaders before the news broke.

“The people who were in the meeting contacted me and were dismayed,” he said. “They felt that his credibility had been damaged.”

Pratt said the damage done is hard to quantify.

“To consider where the university was during the time of Clif Smart’s tenure – all the accomplishments,” he said. “The reputation of Missouri State over the years has increasingly gone up; enrollment’s gone up. There have been so many positive things. The funding from the state and federal government has been exceptional.”

Pratt said the allegations in the lawsuit cast a shadow on the university.

‘Poisoned well’
The lawsuit filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, Southern Region describes Williams clad in a hoodie tightened around his face to obscure his identity crafting an obscene display of vegetables on the front porch of Utah Tech’s vice president of marketing and communications, Jordon Sharp, who had just had a vasectomy procedure. Sharp is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Williams left a note with the display and signed the names of the three officials without their knowledge, his own name not included. Those officials – all responsible for gender equity enforcement at Utah Tech – are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Williams later admitted to the act, which he committed Nov. 8, 2023, in an email to the MSU community.

“While I was there, I initiated what I intended to be a humorous gesture toward a member of our staff. I have since come to realize that the prank was not appropriate,” Williams said in the Nov. 9 email to MSU students, faculty and staff. “This was a mistake. I regret my lapse in judgment, and I accept this as a learning moment.”

The lawsuit, in part, alleges discrimination and retaliation against the plaintiffs surrounding Title IX protections. Williams is one of 30 defendants, both individuals and institutions, named in the lawsuit, which seeks damages in an undisclosed amount and a jury trial.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Rebecca Broadbent, Utah Tech’s most senior female administrator and the general counsel of Utah Tech; Jared Rasband, senior associate general counsel; and Hazel Sainsbury, a Black woman and the university’s director of equity compliance and Title IX coordinator.

“Plaintiffs, in their respective capacities within Utah Tech’s offices of general counsel and Title IX, worked hard to establish an environment free from harassment and discrimination,” the complaint states. “Yet in doing so, they faced resistance, intimidation, harassment and retaliation from Utah Tech’s highest leaders.”

The suit also alleges that the obscenity was followed by a sham investigation and a cover-up.

“Still worse, plaintiffs have lost all support in their roles as Title IX and equity compliance officials, advisers and supervisors at Utah Tech, leaving one of Utah’s largest learning institutions devoid of Congress’ civil rights protections,” the complaint states.

The obscene display and the note crediting Title IX compliance officials were allegedly retaliatory acts involving an earlier incident, dating from 2021, according to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges Sharp and members of his University Marketing and Communications team displayed in a campus break room “highly obscene and vulgar sexual comments.” The plaintiffs offered what is described as a legally mandated response to the break room posts in September 2021.

“Sharp and his UMAC team’s gross misconduct was minimized by human resources and Williams; plaintiffs were required to continue working directly with Sharp and his UMAC team; and plaintiffs were viewed unfavorably by Sharp, other senior administrators and the UMAC department, for simply fulfilling their job responsibilities,” the complaint states.

The complaint alleges the incident resulted in Utah Tech’s senior leaders questioning the processes of the Office of Equity and Compliance, as well as the plaintiffs’ authority under those processes.

“Thus, a ‘poisoned well’ and hostile work environment were created for plaintiffs,” the lawsuit states.

Williams resigned from the Utah Tech presidency and went on the job market in the middle of the 2023-24 academic year. At the time, he said the resignation was to pursue other career opportunities. His resignation was signed approximately six weeks after he created the vegetable display.

In his separation agreement with Utah Tech, signed on Dec. 21, 2023, Williams is guaranteed his annual salary of $357,000 for his transition year in the period of Jan. 6, 2024, to Jan. 6, 2025.

At MSU, Williams’ annual base salary is $475,000, plus an annual housing allowance of $50,000 and up to $50,000 in annual incentive payments based upon the achievement of specified metrics. Smart retired at a base salary of $427,409.

A clause in Williams’ MSU contract states that he may be terminated with cause for reasons that may include “misconduct, conduct that causes embarrassment to the university, moral turpitude, dishonesty, gross negligence, insubordination or violation of university policies.” Potential damages are not laid out under the “termination for cause” section of the contract.

MSU’s Letterman said the Springfield university is not paying for Williams’ legal expenses in the case, as it took place prior to his employment at MSU.

No confidence
The MSU Faculty Senate voted Nov. 21 to pass a no-confidence vote against Williams. The board of governors’ vote to retain the president came less than 24 hours afterward.

The 36-12 Faculty Senate vote – with members choosing to vote by secret ballot – came after a discussion lasting an hour and a half at MSU’s Plaster Student Union. It was an extension of a meeting a week prior in which Williams apologized to an audience that included Faculty Senate members plus a near-capacity Plaster Student Union auditorium filled mostly with faculty members.

At the Nov. 21 meeting, some Faculty Senate members pointed to Williams’ performance in the previous meeting, in which he described how he handled an interaction with plaintiff Broadbent. Williams told MSU Faculty Senate members in the prior meeting that Broadbent had approached him and was “extremely distraught” after the prank involving the vegetable display was signed in her name, and Williams did not admit to being the perpetrator.

“Is this someone who we actually can confide in to be able to lead us?” said Heidi Backes, associate professor of Spanish.

Shurita Thomas-Tate, associate professor in the School of Health Care Professions, said Williams had “demonstrated his lack of judgment.”

“President Williams only shows remorse for getting caught,” she said. “He appears to lack an understanding of why his actions were problematic.”

Multiple members said the university community was looking to the MSU Faculty Senate for leadership on the matter.

“I have students that have shared with me that they don’t feel safe. I have staff members that have shared with me that they are looking to faculty to stand up for what’s right,” said Abby Templer Rodrigues, an associate professor of sociology who presented the motion for a no-confidence vote. “They’re looking to our body to show leadership in this moment.”

Following the MSU board’s decision, Templer Rodrigues said in a statement to SBJ that “the faculty with whom I am in communication are disheartened by the board’s decision to ignore the faculty vote.”

She added, “However, sometimes when faculty express no confidence in the leadership of a president, it results in changed behavior even if it does not lead to a change in leadership, and that is my hope for MSU. My hope is that President Williams will work to demonstrate a commitment to Title IX such that faculty confidence will be restored.”

Prior to its Nov. 21 meeting, the Faculty Senate had made one no-confidence vote against a university president since 1963, which is as far back as Faculty Senate records go, according to a university spokesperson. The other instance was in 1992, when construction costs for Juanita K. Hammons Hall went over budget and President Marshall Gordon ultimately resigned early.

What’s next?
Reached by Facebook message on Nov. 25, Williams said he’s looking forward to continuing in his role as he and other stakeholders engage in strategic planning and other initiatives.

“Great to hear from you,” he wrote. “Yes, the strategic plan is our priority.”

He included a link to the November post from his monthly presidential blog, Words of Williams, to share his latest update. That post was authored not by Williams, but by Chief Academic Strategy Officer Ken Brown and Executive Vice President Zora Mulligan, co-chairs of the university’s strategic planning committee. The two said work groups are being formed from among more than 200 volunteers.

In the post, Mulligan and Brown stressed that the university’s public affairs mission is unclear to some.

“While we value our public affairs mission, we don’t have a common understanding of exactly what it means, how it’s woven into the fabric of campus life and whether some components need to be updated or clarified,” Brown and Mulligan write, noting that feedback on the mission will be collected as the work progresses.