Editorial: Winthrop must align ethics policy with state law

While the firing of short-time Winthrop President Jamie Comstock Williamson was justified for a number of reasons, the agreement she signed with the South Carolina Ethics Commission to avoid a public hearing clearly indicates that Winthrop’s Board of Trustees was negligent in its duties as well.

We hope the board now will work with state officials to ensure that its ethics policies are airtight and that the inattention to nepotism violations never occurs again.

A consent order signed this month by Williamson with the Ethics Commission requires her to pay a $3,000 fine for violating three sections of state law related to nepotism, along with a $1,000 administrative fee. By signing the order, she also admits that she violated state ethics policies by helping to engineer the hiring of her husband as a Winthrop liaison to state legislators and other government officials, a job that paid $30,000 a year.

In return, the commission canceled a public hearing on the case that had been scheduled for Nov. 18. Williamson said “no additional public good could come from a formal hearing,” which is why she said she chose to sign the consent order.

But the eight-page document that comprises the order doesn’t exonerate the Winthrop board from responsibility. To the contrary, it largely corroborates Williamson’s claims that trustees were aware of her efforts to get her husband a job at Winthrop long before he was hired, and that they did nothing to discourage her from doing so.

The commission’s investigation confirmed that others at the university, including trustees Chairwoman Kathy Bigham, discussed Larry Williamson’s serving the school before Jamie Williamson took office.

Williamson also claims that trustees never shared the pertinent parts of the S.C. Ethics Act regarding nepotism or advised her that she might be violating the policy. As a result, she said, she believed she was acting legally.

One factor played a key role in that alleged misunderstanding: Winthrop’s ethics policy doesn’t match state law. For example, the university’s policy prohibits an employee from “causing” a family member to be hired. The S.C. Ethics Act prohibits a public employee from “causing” or “participating” in a family member’s hiring.

That is a significant distinction. While Jamie Williamson might have argued that she didn’t cause her husband’s hiring, she certainly participated in getting him a job at Winthrop.

Winthrop is a state institution run by public employees, and it is inconceivable that the university’s ethics policy does not match state policy. Trustees need to work with state officials to remedy that as soon as possible.

We can only wonder how many other incidents of nepotism have slipped through the cracks because of confusion over the rules and lax enforcement.

When the board fired Jamie Williamson in June 2014, members cited the violation of state nepotism law. But they also alleged that Williamson lied to them, tried to have public records relating to her husband’s hiring expunged, and acted in a hostile and demeaning manner to campus employees.

Her firing did not result entirely from the nepotism charges, and we think the list of other reasons was sufficient to justify her termination. Nonetheless, we sympathize with her to some extent in her contention that she was misled by the board.

Rewriting the university’s ethics policy should help prevent such problems in the future.

But the problem extends well beyond Winthrop. It has been apparent for years that the state needs to overhaul the way ethics violations by public officials, including state legislators, are handled.

The state needs broader transparency on sources of income and contributions, and, above all, oversight by an independent commission not consisting of fellow lawmakers. Reforming state ethics laws would not only help clarify policy and bolster ethics enforcement at state institutions such as Winthrop, but also for state government as a whole.

We hope 2016 is the year the Legislature finally decides to take on true ethics reform.

This story was originally published November 28, 2015 at 2:15 PM with the headline "Editorial: Winthrop must align ethics policy with state law."