Earlier this afternoon, Attorneys Mutaqee Akbar and Ennis Jacobs filed an Emergency Petition for Injunctive Relief on behalf of over a dozen Florida A&M University alumni and students. The suit, filed in the Leon County Circuit Court Civil Division, requests the court to issue a mandatory injunction to require that an independent consultant be retained to conduct an internal investigation of the full presidential selection process. It further requests that the court issue a mandatory requirement for the FAMU Foundation to conduct a financial feasibility analysis of a fiscally responsible presidential compensation package. Finally, the petition asks the court to reserve jurisdiction and, if the court appointed consultants reveal misconduct by FAMU Board of Trustees members that amount to breach of fiduciary duty, to impose sanctions to address the harm.
Last month, the FAMU Board of Trustees, by an 8-4 vote, selected Johnson—a telecommunications lobbyist and Republican political operative—to succeed Dr. Larry Robinson, the university’s 12th president who resigned in the wake of the Gregory Gerami fake $237 million gift scandal last summer. Johnson’s candidacy was deemed suspect by a number of FAMU stakeholders after information leaked that despite lacking in traditional academia credentials, she was added by Board of Trustees Vice Chair Deveron Gibbons, a businessman with significant Republican ties, to a list of finalists which included Dr. Donald Palm, FAMU’s current Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Gerald Hector, a veteran finance administrator at the University of Central Florida, and Dr. Rondall “Ronnie” Allen, the current provost at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
In the newly filed petition, attorneys challenge the legitimacy of Johnson’s selection and potential pay package that, despite her inexperience, would pay her nearly double of what former President Robinson earned as a “Breach of Fiduciary Duty” by the Board of Trustees.
The lawsuit attacks the following three sub-issues:
A Rigged Selection Process
Plaintiffs allege that Vice Chair Deveron Gibbons began hinting at Johnson’s hire as a “non-traditional candidate” as early as October 2024, despite the fact that the Trustees set three criteria that exclusively identified a career academic officer as being the best candidate.
The lawsuit also alleges that in March of 2025, that Gov. Ron Desantis himself gauged the possibility of a Johnson presidency with members of the Florida Black Legislative Caucus during a time when the names of the 60 candidates for the job were supposed to still be a secret per a 2022 law to keep university presidential candidates a secret known only to Trustees that was signed into law by…wait for it…Ron Desantis.
The suit further notes that at least one Board of Governors member, Alan Levine, fired off text messages to Trustees members demanding that they not give light to what was then only speculation that Johnson was the pre-determined pick. Indeed, these allegations surely will add fuel to the fire of tens of thousands of FAMU stakeholders who read Johnson’s resume and watched her extremely poor interviews, only to watch her still emerge as the president-select in May.
Pending Civil Investigations
The suit alleges that two investigations into the selection process, one by the Board of Governors and a second by the Southern Association of Colleges and School, the accrediting board that provides oversight to each of Florida’s state universities, were still open and unresolved at the time that Johnson was selected only weeks after Trustees voted down a measure to table the search to allow resolution of those matters.
Contractual Concerns
One of the most contentious debates after Johnson was selected was compensation, namely, how would her requested $700,000 per year—almost a third more that what President Robinson earned—be paid.
During the FAMU Foundation Board meeting two weeks ago, Directors voted to conduct a feasibility study since, per Florida law and a Memorandum of Understanding between the university and the Foundation, the State of Florida is only responsible for $200,000 of the salary with the remainder being provided by the Foundation. Last week, despite knowing that the Foundation had yet to receive, let alone review, a feasibility study, the Board of Trustees voted 8-3 to approve a contract that would pay Johnson approximately $4.8 million over five years.
Not surprisingly, during last week’s Board of Trustees meeting, the body learned that the Foundation does not have the requisite funds to pay Johnson’s proposed salary, a public revelation that signals that despite threats from Trustee Nicole Washington of “forcing” the Foundation to pay, that not only are the coffers not sufficiently filled to meet Johnson’s negotiated salary, but that Florida law does not require the Foundation to answer to the dictates of the Board of Trustees. This last issue is not only ripe in the newly filed FAMU lawsuit, but certainly bears watching at New College of Florida, another SUS school led by Desantis crony and similarly inexperienced President Richard Corcoran that is in the news for its Trustees playing boardroom commando with its Foundation’s funds.
Stay tuned to the Hobbservation Point for more news and analysis about FAMU’s tainted presidential selection process, and the pending lawsuit which can be read via the following link!
