A state lawmaker who had been critical of the way Georgia Tech handled student misconduct cases says he and the school’s president are back on good terms.
State Rep. Earl Ehrhart said he and Tech president Bud Peterson had a very “cordial and productive” conversation this week about Ehrhart’s criticisms of the institution and new due-process policies being implemented for all schools in the state’s University System, including Georgia Tech.
Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, had criticized Tech for its policies, which he claimed did not provide students accused of wrongdoing with fair treatment in investigating, hearing and appealing their cases.
Last week, the Marietta Daily Journal reported that Ehrhart, who chairs the state House committee responsible for allocating funds to the state's colleges and universities, said Peterson should resign over the unfair practices. (Ehrhart denied he asked for Peterson's ouster, instead saying "if things didn't change" the school would need someone like Purdue University president Mitch Daniels to replace him.)
But two recent actions by Peterson “demonstrated that he is the man I knew he was,” Ehrhart said. According to the state lawmaker, Peterson reached out to the mother of a 19-year-old student accused of sexual misconduct who said school officials prevented her from being in the room with her son during a hearing. Peterson also wrote a letter to the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, Ehrhart said, apologizing for unfairly punishing the students.
Tech suspended the fraternity last year after some of its members were accused of yelling racial slurs at a black student outside the fraternity house. A review of the case last month found that the suspension violated Tech's policies, which don't allow punishment of a whole organization unless it can be proven that the leaders were complicit in the actions.
"We're moving forward to a new day," Ehrhart said. In fact, a $47 million for a library expansion at Tech that the lawmaker had cut this year, could be in the budget next year, he said.
“All of these things are now in abeyance and will be moving forward.”
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