The University of Virginia center that hired a former top official in the Trump administration, enraging some faculty members, is defending the appointment.
William Antholis, chief executive of the U. of Virginia’s Miller Center, said the appointment of Marc Short, a former top official in the Trump administration, “is squarely in our core work of studying the presidency.”U. of Virginia
In a written statement on Friday, William J. Antholis, director and chief executive of UVa’s Miller Center, defended at length the appointment of Marc Short while acknowledging the divisions it has caused.
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The University of Virginia center that hired a former top official in the Trump administration, enraging some faculty members, is defending the appointment.
William Antholis, chief executive of the U. of Virginia’s Miller Center, said the appointment of Marc Short, a former top official in the Trump administration, “is squarely in our core work of studying the presidency.”U. of Virginia
In a written statement on Friday, William J. Antholis, director and chief executive of UVa’s Miller Center, defended at length the appointment of Marc Short while acknowledging the divisions it has caused.
Antholis said Short, who was director of legislative affairs for the White House, would offer valuable insight into President Trump’s administration and so would be a boon for the center, a “nonpartisan affiliate” of the university that focuses on studying the presidency.
“But this appointment also speaks to a greater challenge for all of us: welcoming someone back into our community to begin a robust and hard conversation about the future of our democracy, and doing so in an environment that prioritizes rational and respectful discourse,” Antholis’s statement says. “Marc brings a missing critical voice — one that represents members of Congress and the Republican Party who continue to support the president in large numbers.”
In addition to the yearlong fellowship to which Short was appointed, Antholis said he had been invited to serve as a guest lecturer at the institution. Short had previously been a guest lecturer at UVa’s Darden School of Business, where he had earned an M.B.A.
Faculty members at the university have protested the appointment, and as of Friday at least 2,100 people had signed a petition decrying the move.
“The university should not serve as a waystation for high-level members of an administration,” the petition says, “that has directly harmed our community and to this day attacks the institutions vital to a free society — the very thing that the University of Virginia, as an institution of higher education, is meant to protect.”
Protesters said Short’s appointment was especially problematic given the looming one-year anniversary of a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that left one protester dead. Trump infamously said at the time that there were good people on “both sides” of the protests. Short told Politico that the administration could have done a “better job” of responding to the victims, but that Trump had been “unambiguous” in his denunciation of the violence.
Antholis said Short had “embraced” a statement from the Miller Center’s Governing Council that denounced the white supremacists at the rally.
“Indeed, that context drove me to make this appointment,” Antholis said. “Obviously, this appointment is squarely in our core work of studying the presidency. Marc’s experience and expertise only strengthens our ability to understand and explain this administration, including in its most difficult and divisive moments.”
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Chris Quintana was a breaking-news reporter for The Chronicle. He graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing.
