COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – The first African American basketball star at the University of South Carolina, a former NBA veteran who ran unopposed with the support of the governor, would appear to be an obstacle to the election for a full term in the School board of trustees.
But Alex English still had to sweat for re-election on Wednesday, after a conservative lawmaker insisted on a roll-call vote in which 10 Republicans voted against the former professional athlete, just one of the two black members of the 21-member council. About two dozen Republicans did not vote.
English was one of the first black players at the University of South Carolina in 1972 and perhaps the most famous. He played 16 seasons in the NBA, most prominently for the Denver Nuggets in the 1980s and eight years as a star. Now 67, he sought re-election for a term that expires in 2022.
Black lawmakers said the vote is just the latest example of several Republicans in the General Assembly rejecting diversity by electing judges and trustees. More than one in four people in South Carolina are black.
The General Assembly elected two dozen judges last month and none were black. In 2019, lawmakers selected 44 judges. Only two of the races were contested, and both times a black candidate lost to a white. Several African-American lawmakers came out briefly to protest. Of the 61 judges at the Supreme, Appeal or Circuit courts in South Carolina, only nine are black.
“Although there was no option but Alex English, some of my colleagues still felt compelled to vote against him. And the drama and the machinations they go through to do that are really – special, so to speak, ”said MP Gilda Cobb-Hunter, the oldest member of the House after Wednesday’s vote.
There was another candidate for curator running unopposed at Lander University in Greenwood and a vote was not called in that dispute. A former member of the House won the only contested seat at The Citadel 154-2, while English won the seat at the University of South Carolina 112-10, with 34 lawmakers who voted in the chosen race simply because they did not vote in the English race.
“It shows how much work remains to be done in South Carolina,” said Cobb-Hunter, an Orangeburg Democrat first elected in 1992.
English served as a curator in his alma mater for a few years after his playing career, then went on to work as a coach. Last summer, Governor Henry McMaster nominated him back on the board after a member left to head the university’s law school.
English promised to promote diversity and fiscal responsibility when it appeared before a panel of senators and representatives in February, which selects candidates for curators and restricts them to the General Assembly elections.
“We need to make our faculty and staff look like the population of the state, you know. And I think we have to do the same thing with the students, ”said English.
About 10% of students are black on the main campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
Several Republicans did not return messages asking why they voted against English, but when the race was still contested, some worried about Twitter posts that English excluded support efforts to change the names of campus buildings from segregationists or other people historically divisive, including former Sen. Strom Thurmond of the USA.
English said in a statement that he will always support students by using their voices to make changes. But, as a curator, he listened and, finally, gave in to the Legislature. The body must approve any changes to buildings named after people under a law passed in 2000, when the Confederate flag was removed from a mast at the top of the Statehouse dome.
One of the youngest African-American lawmakers in the House said that the idea of diversity conservatives is to allow one or two black candidates to rise to the front, whether Democrats want that person or not.
“We are not a monolith. We have standards. We have criteria. We also have things we’re looking for, ”said Rep. Krystle Matthews, Ladson’s Democrat elected to the House in 2018.
Matthews said it is tiring to fight tooth and nail for every black candidate, but the lack of diversity falls more on an African American who is in court or at a university who does not understand his education.
“Although it is top notch here for us, someone will have to deal with the details and that will be the people,” said Matthews.
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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.