The St. Louis American blasts Governor Nixon today over his recent appointment to the University of Missouri’s Board of Curators. Nixon’s choice of former lawmaker Wayne Goode, to replace African American member Cheryl Walker, seems to have the African American community very concerned and frustrated – as evidence by this post and this post.

“Nixon’s advisors failed him, however, on his recent appointments to the University of Missouri Board of Curators – or he momentarily stopped listening to them.

Last week Nixon appointed former state Rep. Wayne Goode and a newspaper publisher from St. Joseph named David Bradley to this important board that oversees the four-campus university system. With the board’s sole African American (Cheryl Walker) leaving one of the two positions that are being filled, these new appointments will leave the state university board without one single black representative for the first time since 1971, when Gov. Warren Hearnes appointed Theodore D. McNeal to the board. The most recent Democratic governor (Bob Holden) appointed two African Americans to this board (Walker and Angela M. Bennett), and even the arch-conservative Republican Gov. John D. Ashcroft made two black appointments (Cynthia Bramlett Thompson and Eva Louise Frazier) to this board.

Given the critical importance of state universities in the higher-education options of black students, it’s simply not acceptable that Nixon should leave this nine-member board completely devoid of African-American voting representation.” Read more…

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