Keep politics out of VCU degrees

Since when did the House Appropriations Committee get into the business of conferring and revoking academic degrees?

During a testy meeting Monday, state lawmakers pressed top officials at Virginia Commonwealth University to rescind a degree that was improperly awarded last year to former Richmond Police Chief Rodney Monroe.

VCU leaders apologized but said their attorneys concluded a revocation was not permitted under current academic policies. Undeterred, legislators suggested they may try to pass a bill next winter nullifying Monroe's degree. That would be way outside the boundaries for lawmakers.

Appropriations Committee chairman Lacey Putney of Bedford has a valid concern about the integrity of VCU's degree-granting. He oversees a state budget that invests $220 million annually in the university. But there's no evidence that this is anything more than an anomaly.

State law puts the university and its board "under the control of the General Assembly." But board members, who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the legislature, are empowered to confer academic and honorary degrees.

It's jarring to hear Putney, a longtime champion of limited government, suggest he may gallop into the halls of academia and retrieve an errant sheepskin.

He's got bigger issues to attend to, namely a $2.5 billion hole in the state budget and a shortfall in road revenues topping $2 billion over six years.

It is unsettling that high-ranking administrators at VCU intentionally violated their own policies to grant Monroe his degree, but the VCU board has responded appropriately. The matter has been investigated, and the appropriate officials have been held accountable.

Based on the advice of the Attorney General's Office, the board concluded it could not retract the degree because there was no evidence of misconduct on Monroe's part, nor even evidence that he was aware that he had received preferential treatment. The JLARC review called the board's decision "reasonable."

Putney and other legislators don't have to like it. In fact, they shouldn't. The VCU board didn't either. In its wake, the board is looking for ways to revoke improperly granted degrees in the future.

However, any effort by lawmakers to take matters into their own hands would further politicize an already difficult situation.

Putney and his colleagues should back off.