UVA’s Dean of African-American Affairs M. Rick Turner was placed on administrative leave on Friday, July 14, after signing an agreement with federal prosecutors to avoid prosecution. According to the feds, Turner lied about his knowledge concerning the activities of a drug dealer in a July 2005 investigation. The outspoken dean has been placed on 12 months probation. Meanwhile, UVA is conducting an “internal investigation” and has appointed Sylvia V. Terry, former associate dean, to Turner’s role for the interim.
Media reports have touched on Turner’s controversial stance on race matters, as well as his role within the NAACP, but really—who is this guy? What’s the controversy? And what does all this mean for UVA?
Turner came to UVA in 1988, with a Ph.D. from Stanford in higher education administration. Since then, he’s helped to boost the school’s African-American graduation rates to 87 percent—about as high as it gets for an overwhelmingly white institution like UVA. The Office of African-America Affairs (OAAA) has been hailed for being ambitious, effective and hugely supportive of African-American students.
In addition, Turner is the president of the Albemarle/Charlottesville branch of the NAACP, which frequently plays watchdog for race issues in the community (and at UVA).
Turner described himself in a March 2005 Cavalier Daily article as follows: “I don’t consider myself a radical. I consider those folks who might call me a radical to not really understand the term, not understand the progression of history.”
Well, a radical he may not be, but Turner certainly has a notorious history in the verbal bomb-throwing department. Speaking on behalf of former City school superintendent Scottie Griffin in 2005, Turner called protests against her a “modern-day lynching” and likened some white parents to the Ku Klux Klan.
Addressing the University community in a February, 2005 speech on the state of race relations, Turner said, “Black people in this community should not expect white people to do anything for them.”
When a spate of racial incidents occurred at UVA in fall of 2005—with epithets shouted from cars and racial slurs depicted on walls—Turner called the events “racial terrorism.”
That same year, Turner told C-VILLE “In Charlottesville I am [living] among a group of frightened and afraid Negroes that are reluctant to stand up for African-American issues…particularly African American children who continue to die in Charlottesville.”
Turner hasn’t been UVA’s main spokesman on diversity issues since September 2005, when the administration created the role of vice president for diversity and equity, a position that was filled by the more diplomatic William Harvey.
The agreement signed last week assumes Turner’s guilt in lying to federal prosecutors, and requires him to remain a resident of Virginia and testify in future proceedings.
UVA isn’t saying how long its “internal investigation” will continue, but says no permanent staffing decisions have been made.
Turner could not be reached for comment; his automatic e-mail reply said he was attending the NAACP convention in Washington, D.C.
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Dean of African-American affairs placed on leave
UVA’s Dean of African-American Affairs M. Rick Turner was placed on administrative leave on Friday, July 14, after signing an agreement with federal prosecutors to avoid prosecution. According to the feds, Turner lied about his knowledge concerning the activities of a drug dealer in a July 2005 investigation.
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