F. King Alexander resigns as Oregon State University President
Oregon State University will soon be searching for a new school president, once again. F. King Alexander has submitted his resignation as of Tuesday morning, per our own John Canzano.
Breaking: Oregon State president F. King Alexander has submitted his resignation.
— John Canzano (@johncanzanobft) March 23, 2021
The OSU Board of Trustees met Tuesday morning during a specially called meeting, per USA Today. There, they announced Alexander’s offer to resign, before discussing whether or not to accept the offer. Before that session, board chair Rani Borkar said, “We know that rebuilding trust is no longer possible.”
Alexander is facing overwhelming outrage for his role in the LSU sexual misconduct scandal, surrounding former Tigers head football coach Les Miles, when Alexander was LSU’s president from 2013-19.
Miles reportedly sexually harassing female student workers when he coached at LSU. USA Today sued for the investigation’s report from 2013 that revealed two women in the football program complaining about Miles’ misconduct.
One of the women said Miles “had begun sending her messages after she started work with the football program, and how the powerful coach had pressed her to deploy an alias and add her phone number to his personal cellphone,” The New York Times reports.
Also, Miles “suggested they retreat to a hotel or his condominium and that he had kissed her twice,” other accusations were redacted from the report, per The New York Times.
The resignation is effective April 1, but Alexander will be on administrative leave until then. USA Today reports “his resignation comes with a settlement agreement that will pay Alexander an additional year’s salary, around $600,000.”
Oregon State hired him to replace outgoing president Ed Ray, and Alexander began in July 2020. He did not last one year on the job.
