Earlier this year, Purnell Swett was nominated by the state House to serve on the UNC Board of Governors for a four-year term. That is now posing a problem for the same legislators who nominated and approved his election. You see, Swett has a criminal record stemming from his time as superintendent of Robeson County schools, where in 1998 he plead guilty to taking $13,000 from the school system.
Legislators claim they were not aware of the conviction. That includes Rep. Douglas Yongue, a Democrat who represents Robeson County. They are now hoping that Swett opts not to serve on the BOG so they can nominate another person, according to Speaker of the House Joe Hackney.
So where was the vetting of Swett’s candidacy during the nomination process? The Associated Press and others ran articles mentioning Swett’s conviction after his nomination was approved. If The Associated Press knew about it, certainly legislators, including Yongue who is from the area, had to have known.
This again asks the question of why nominations to the Board of Governors are left in the hands of legislators. As the Pope Center has written before, the public would be better served by an appointment process in which the governor makes the selection to the BOG instead of the General Assembly. Others have agreed with those conclusions as well in their own report.
