The Unelected Power Behind UM
Missoulian guest column
By Hunter Pauli, Former Kaimin Editor
Every Grizzly football game begins with a pledge of allegiance to American democracy, but at the University of Montana the ideal of a community electing its leaders is thrown out in favor of rule by political appointees, unelected bureaucrats and local oligarchs.
Those foaming over the hiring of Bobby Hauck aren't upset because the university community had a vote for head football coach and their candidate lost. They're upset because unelected boosters handpicked a man who inadvertently correlated the University of Montana with rape, driving down enrollment for years and gutting academics. At the behest of Grizzly athletics' private donors, this man was hired by an athletic director appointed by a university president himself appointed by a board of regents appointed by the highest executive official in the state, who actually was chosen by the people.
At no point in UM's saga of football, rape and enrollment has there been any public accountability. The unelected coach Robin Pflugrad was fired by the unelected president Royce Engstrom who was fired by the unelected board of regents. None of these failed public officials ever threw themselves on their swords by resigning, and the chain of appointed offices runs so high that anyone wishing to recall the elected official responsible for the mess would have nowhere to turn but the governor's mansion.
But holding Gov. Steve Bullock responsible for the actions of a football coach four degrees removed from him is inappropriate, especially when major athletic decisions fall to the state oligarchs who ply the Athletic Department with cash. Those critical of UM's administration for building new athletic facilities while laying off professors in the aftermath of an athletic scandal have misplaced the blame. The money for the Washington-Grizzly Champions Center was earmarked specifically for its construction by its donor, the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, no matter if the university community thinks it more important to preserve academics.
Likely sensing their brand was tarnished by connotations of rape and degraded academics, the Washington Foundation donated another $10 million in October to expand UM's College of Education, which was adorned with the Washington name in 2009 after a previous donation. There is no doubt the Washington Foundation's money is being put to good use making Montana's top education program even better, but one has to wonder why the only support for education on campus is coming from an aging copper king whitewashing his legacy rather than the legislature elected to invest in the state's future.
Billionaire industrialist Dennis Washington was rich before he bought the Berkeley Pit and adjoining mining rights in Butte, but the copper and molybdenum flowing out of the new Continental Pit made him the richest man in the state. In thanks, Washington gifted UM its first proper bowl stadium, which opened three months after the new open pit mine. Like the university's appointed leaders, Washington will likely never be held accountable for fallout resulting from either of those holes in the ground, whether they bear his name or not.
We trust democracy to provide leaders of government that shape the very fabric of our lives, yet we've been conditioned to unquestioningly accept the most feudal of power structures as soon as we set foot inside a school. As long as the power to make life-and-death decisions about the university rests in the hands of boosters and appointees, unpunished mistakes at UM will continue to snowball. The power behind the throne of UM has never been given a public mandate, and they've shown they don't deserve one.
