ST. GEORGE, Utah — In the wake of Utah Tech University's former president and current leadership facing a harassment and discrimination lawsuit, the school's faculty have now voiced that they have no confidence in their bosses, with top student voices adding that enough is enough.
"We don't have any confidence in the people running this university," said Angel Wood, the social media editor of the Utah Tech Sun News Daily, the school's digital newspaper
Wood is one of the few willing to share her thoughts on camera, but off camera, professors and scholars say they aren’t happy about allegations about Richard “Biff” Williams, the school’s former president, and also accuse current leadership of trying to cover it up.
The faculty Senate voted 23-4 to issue a resolution of no confidence in current interim president Courtney White and five other administrators. In the hours afterward, in an email poll of all faculty, about 77% of them said they supported the no-confidence vote.
Two weeks before finals and this weekend's rivalry football game with Southern Utah University, the Utah Tech campus was quieter Friday than the inside of its library. But leave no doubt, there was a quiet storm of discontent brewing.
"It's hard to see from an outsider's perspective, but also I'm living in it. I know most of these people being sued right now. I've talked to most of them, most of them are out waving at everybody, smiling at everybody, and it's just, it makes me kind of uncomfortable to be a student here," said Wood.
A lawsuit claims Williams, who resigned late last year and is now president of Missouri State University, created a vulgar prank using sexual innuendo, then blamed the school’s attorneys and Title IX coordinator who were not involved and suing.
Last week, FOX 13 News revealed that as part of his resignation agreement, Williams was paid more than $280,000 by Utah Tech since his resignation up until he took his new position. On Thursday, the Utah Board of Higher Education changed its policy to no longer allow such payments.
In a front page editorial signed by the entire staff, the Utah Tech Sun News Daily said current leadership needs to go.
"We still are without an actual president, and from everybody actually running for that position," Wood said. "They're all part of this lawsuit. And so what we wanted was a clean house for this university. We truthfully don't want to see anybody being the president over this university that's been involved in all of these allegations and these lawsuits and this inappropriate behavior."
