FAMU president James Ammons
*Florida A&M’s president will keep his job after the university board of trustees Monday rejected a call from Gov. Rick Scott that James Ammons be suspended while the hazing death of a band member is investigated.
As previously reported, the decision comes three days after the state medical examiner ruled that 26-year-old Robert Champion’s Nov. 19 death was a homicide. Officials say he was beaten so severely that he bled internally and went into shock. He died within an hour.
“We will stand firm against outside influence, no matter how well intended,” Solomon Badger, the FAMU board chairman, said during a board meeting that was held by conference call. Scott said he would abide by the board’s decision.
Ammons and other university leaders have been criticized for not doing enough to stop a culture of hazing within the university’s famed “Marching 100” band. Band director Julian White has been placed on temporary leave and the board had already publicly reprimanded Ammons.
Glad to see they stood up to the man. Control the mind that develops the young minds and you control the world. We all need to straighten our backs. Glad to know some of us still out there fighting the good fight. Where have you ever seen, or heard, of a Govenor trying to remove a president of a college. Never is where. Black man has so many enemies and yet we have done nothing to no one. Must be the Devil. Don’t need to piss him off. Just woke up hating the world.