It has been an ugly few days for the flagship campus of the University of Illinois.
It will almost assuredly get worse.
With its decision on Wednesday to reject the terms of Phyllis M. Wise’s resignation as chancellor of the Urbana-Champaign campus, the university’s Board of Trustees has set the stage for a messy legal battle that could bring the two parties’ heretofore private disagreements into public view.
Rather than let Ms. Wise resign with a $400,000 retention bonus, to which she would have been entitled under her contract, the board’s executive committee has decided to move forward with proceedings to fire her as chancellor, an action that will compel the trustees to lay out in grim detail all of the reasons they think Ms. Wise is unfit to lead the campus.
Most trustees in similar situations just hold their noses and pay up. But Illinois is different. The board was under political pressure not to pay out the bonus, and misgivings in the state about presidential compensation are particularly acute.
Ms. Wise announced her intention to resign as chancellor last week, just before the university released hundreds of emails that the chancellor and others had sent from private accounts in an apparent effort to subvert public-records laws. The emails concerned some of the most contentious issues to arise during Ms. Wise’s tenure, including her decision to rescind a job offer to a scholar who had made inflammatory statements about Israel on social media.
The emails provide an uncommonly unvarnished view of a university leader’s deliberations and decision making, but the board has forecast an even more thorough reckoning for Ms. Wise.
Edward L. McMillan, the board’s chairman, said in a statement on Wednesday that Ms. Wise would soon receive a list of “reasons for your proposed dismissal as chancellor accompanied by the facts in support thereof.” University procedure provides for a hearing on those matters, where the chancellor will be permitted to “comment on the reasons and to present evidence.”
That is precisely the sort of macabre theater most boards seek to avoid.
Mr. McMillan declined an interview request on Thursday.
In an email to several reporters on Thursday, Ms. Wise described the board’s decision to fire her as one “apparently motivated more by politics than the interests of the university,” and suggested that the board had “reneged on the promises in our negotiated agreement and initiated termination proceedings. This action was unprecedented, unwarranted, and completely contrary to the spirit of our negotiations last week.”
She said she had begun discussions “months before this controversy began” about providing a gift to the university’s College of Medicine commensurate with the amount of her bonus, but made no mention of the status of those talks.
The ousted chancellor said she had wanted to avoid “engaging the board in a public debate that would ultimately harm the university,” and had therefore reiterated her desire to resign as chancellor and had declined a position as presidential adviser.
And yet, Ms. Wise alluded to possible fights yet to come:
“These recent events have saddened me deeply. I had intended to finish my career at this university, overseeing the fulfillment of groundbreaking initiatives we had just begun. Instead, I find myself consulting with lawyers and considering options to protect my reputation in the face of the board’s position.”
Raymond D. Cotton, a Washington lawyer who represents presidents and boards in contract negotiations, said Ms. Wise was likely to challenge the board’s decision in court. The chancellor is taking the brunt of the public criticism at the moment, Mr. Cotton said, but the decision to dismiss her makes the board vulnerable to the same scrutiny.
“If this thing goes forward, remember that the chancellor’s lawyers are going to have the ability to take the depositions of these board members,” he said, “and a lot of dirty laundry is going to be aired on both sides.”
Ms. Wise’s letter of employment, which details the provisions for a retention bonus, makes no overt mention of its being subject to forfeiture. Nor does it articulate what actions would warrant a “for cause” firing. The contract’s silence on those matters is uncommon, and it makes Ms. Wise’s case anything but open and shut, Mr. Cotton said.
“Where does it say that she’s still not entitled to her severance? It doesn’t say it in the university statute or the contract,” Mr. Cotton said. “Unfortunately for the university and Dr. Wise, this is just the beginning. This is the opening shot.”
‘A Different Track’
The chancellor’s employment agreement states that she will receive a prorated portion of her retention incentive if she leaves before the end of a five-year term “at the election of the Board of Trustees, or upon death or disability.”
Thomas P. Hardy, a university spokesman, said that language makes clear she is not entitled to the money.
“The clear construction,” he wrote in an email, “is that for every other situation in which she fails to serve for the full five years as chancellor — e.g., she resigns, she’s fired for cause — she gets no retention incentive comp.”
Timothy L. Killeen, the university system’s president, said on Wednesday that he had hoped to honor “the spirit” of Ms. Wise’s original contract, which provides for a prorated retention bonus of $400,000.
“But the board, with a lot of discussion and a lot of analysis, has mandated a different track, which I fully respect,” Mr. Killeen told reporters after the board’s meeting. “The board members have many considerations to bring to the table.”
Indeed.
Gov. Bruce V. Rauner, a Republican and ex officio member of the board, was highly critical of the proposal to pay Ms. Wise hundreds of thousands of dollars on her way out.
Mr. Killeen, who was not made available for an interview, said this week that retention incentives would no longer be included in employment agreements for administrators at Illinois. He has asked the board to remove from his own contract provisions for such payments.
Payouts of this sort are often contentious, but they have gotten particular attention in Illinois. In May state lawmakers released a report that described a “fantasy world of lavish perks” for college administrators. The report stemmed from concerns about a lucrative severance deal for Robert L. Breuder, president of the College of DuPage.
State Sen. Bill Cunningham, chair of the Senate subcommittee that produced the report, said his constituents were struggling to keep up with tuition increases and were angered by what they view as excesses in public higher education.
“Those complaints are only magnified when they read stories about the pay some university administrators receive, and more specifically the golden parachutes administrators receive when they are essentially forced out of their jobs,” Senator Cunningham, a Democrat who represents parts of Chicago and the suburbs, said in an interview. “That really infuriates taxpayers and people here in Illinois.”
‘Growing Distaste’ for Bonuses
The University of Illinois has channeled this sort of anger before. In 2012, when Michael J. Hogan, the system’s president, resigned under pressure, he received $67,500 in retention-incentive compensation.
He then joined the Springfield campus’s faculty as a distinguished professor, where he earned $306,269 over the last year, university records show.
In 2009, Richard H. Herman, chancellor at Urbana-Champaign, and B. Joseph White, the system’s president, both resigned in the wake of an admissions scandal.
Unlike Mr. Hogan, Mr. Herman and Mr. White gave up their retention bonuses, which were valued at $300,000 and $475,000, respectively. Both men, however, have lucrative appointments with the university.
Mr. White is a professor of business and leadership at the flagship campus, where he earned nearly $328,000 in 2014-15. Mr. Herman earned $200,000 as a professor in the Urbana-Champaign campus’s department of education policy, organization, and leadership.
In an interview on Thursday, Mr. White said that he had decided not to take a bonus because he knew it would be contentious and prolong the controversy at the university. He would not comment on Ms. Wise’s pursuit of the $400,000, other than to say that “each person needs to make his or her own judgment.”
“It was a very hard thing to do,” Mr. White said of his decision, “but there are things more important than money.”
Mr. White said he suspects that the board’s decision to dismiss Ms. Wise, rather than to let her resign, was a response to the “growing distaste” for bonus payments in Illinois.
“It’s all very unfortunate,” he said. “Phyllis Wise is a very talented leader who gave her all to the University of Illinois.”
Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.
