Morehouse College President John Silvanus Wilson is officially the former president of the HBCU, three months earlier than anticipated, according to HBCU Digest. The move comes just days after Wilson penned a letter in reaction to his White House meeting with President Donald Trump and other HBCU presidents.
In a letter from Morehouse Board Chairman Robert Davidson, William Taggart is named as the person in charge of day-to-day operations at Morehouse.
“I, along with the entire Board of Trustees, have the utmost confidence as he steps into his new role and leads Morehouse in the coming months,” Davidson wrote.
“I want to acknowledge some of the concerns raised by students and faculty related to the Board’s decision process regarding President Wilson’s contract. There are long-standing measures in place that provide guidance on participation in Board decision-making and these guidelines exist to protect confidentialities, eliminate potential conflicts of interest, and to ensure that those who cast votes hold no bias,” the letter continued, specifically addressing student concerns of transparency that were brought to light prior to Wilson’s exit.
Days prior to being ousted, Wilson appeared on several broadcast television and radio programs, in which he reacted to President Trump’s executive order on HBCUs.
‘Therefore, since President Trump pledged to ‘do more for HBCUs than any other president has done before,’ we could have reasonably expected him to get started by announcing at least an additional $500 million to HBCUs…this year!” he said in a letter to the Morehouse community.
“And beside the expectation of new funding, there was advance talk of changes like an aspirational goal of 5 to 10 percent for federal agency funding to HBCUs, a special HBCU innovation fund, large boosts in Pell Grant and Title III funding, and extra tax breaks for those in the private sector who contribute to HBCUs. But, instead of the long-awaited executive order containing or signaling any of those outcomes, the key change is a symbolic shift of the White House HBCU Initiative from the Department of Education to the White House. It is not possible to measure the impact of this gesture anytime soon, if ever.”
