Brandon Dumas, chair of the embattled East Baton Rouge Council on Aging before stepping down in April, has been fired by Southern University and will appeal his termination to school’s board of supervisors on Friday.
Dumas, the school’s vice chancellor for student affairs, will remain on administrative leave until his termination becomes effective on Aug.10, according to a release issued by the university.
He was placed on leave June 23, the same day the university’s accreditation body put Southern on a “warning” for one year due to problems with policies on faculty, student achievement and student complaints, says the report.
The Southern University Board of Supervisors may enter into executive session—meaning the public and news media would be barred from the hearing—to discuss Dumas’s termination and appeal. It’s unclear what prompted the firing, and a university spokesman declined comment, citing Friday’s hearing.
Spokesman Henry Tillman also declined to comment on news reports about a leaked sex tape that allegedly involved an unidentified Southern employee, and/or student. Dumas was placed on leave the same week that Southern officials said they were looking into a possible cyber crime related to the video.
Dumas has served as vice chancellor for student affairs for nearly five years, according to his faculty biography. He also served as the COA board chair as the nonprofit grappled with a public backlash over the agency’s director involvement in a deceased client’s contested will, which had been drawn up by board member Dorothy Jackson. Jackson, an associate clinical professor at Southern University Law Center, was placed on leave in April for unknown reasons.
As for Dumas, he resigned as COA board chair in April after questions about whether he resided in Baton Rouge surfaced. And his affiliation with the agency may have cost him a job as president of Paine College, a small historically black liberal arts college in Augusta, Georgia. That college’s selection committee named Dumas one of two finalists for the post, but picked someone else after local media in Augusta reported on his affiliation with the COA and the agency’s troubles.
—Sam Karlin
