Zell, No! ...
When his current term ends, Senator Zell Miller will retire to his north Georgia hometown, Young Harris. Instead of joining the faculty of his alma mater, Young Harris College, where he taught earlier, Miller will join an Atlanta law firm. The decision not to return to teaching at the college, was foretold in an intemperate letter much earlier this year to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Young Harris history professor, David Franklin. Among other things, Professor Franklin wrote:"You, Zell Miller, are a disgrace to your city, your county, your state and your country. Your attack upon the U.S. Senate that you sit in now was so unpatriotic it boggles the imagination."
David Franklin was clearly reacting to Zell Miller's decision to endorse President Bush for re-election and his vitriolic attacks on his Senate Democratic colleagues. Miller announced then that he would not return to teach at the college because he wouldn't feel welcome.
There are several things that need to be noted here. The first, I think, is that Zell Miller is hard to characterize politically. As KC Johnson wrote here in August, he began his political career as one of many conservative Southern white Democrats with a lingering commitment to the New Deal. They were legion in a solid South in which black folk were commonly not allowed to vote. That continued when he served as chief of staff to Georgia's embarrassing segregationist governor, Lester Maddox. Like a good politician, Miller negotiated the civil rights revolution and ultimately served as governor of the state, himself. In that office, he won the hearts of Georgia educators by establishing a lottery which funds HOPE Scholarships for college students who maintain a minimal grade point average. I've never admired that system because it winks at exploitation and fraud on both ends. The lottery exploits the hopes of poor people and its outlets tend to be concentrated in impoverished neighborhoods throughout the state. We rich and middle-class folk are happy that tax funds don't underwrite HOPE Scholarships. On the other end of the line, state-funded scholarships based on minimal grade point averages create inordinate pressure for grade inflation. Administrators want seats occupied; students want their A or B; departments want their lines increased; and professors are likely to report unusually good grades. You want a college graduate who can't write an intelligent sentence? Georgia's got ‘em.
The other thing that Zell Miller did as governor that endeared him to African Americans and white liberals in Georgia was that he tried to change the state flag so that it no longer looked like the Confederate battle flag. He expended so much political capital in that losing effort that he was almost defeated for re-election. His successor, Roy Barnes, did change the state flag; and he was defeated for re-election. Zell Miller was appointed to the Senate by Roy Barnes to succeed a Republican and Miller's voting record is hardly distinguishable from his Republican predecessor's. There's pretty good reason to believe that Zell Miller has a keen sense of what Georgia voters think. Through all that, Zell Miller looks more like a Southern populist than any other label I can think of. He's no flaming liberal. He'd never have been elected to statewide office if he had been. His lingering commitments to the New Deal and a militant democracy are satisfied with big government conservatism.
But – whatever – the prospect of his returning to the college classroom, it seems to me, was not a happy one. Those who think well of the idea cite the fact that: a) David Franklin is the husband of Young Harris academic dean, Louisa Franklin; and that b) Professor Franklin was a charter member of the Kerry for President Steering Committee in Georgia. So, when Eugene Volokh points out that David Franklin was only one professor exercising his free speech rights about Zell Miller and Glenn Reynolds revises his post accordingly, they're both underplaying the fact that the husband of the academic dean published his vitriolic letter attacking the state's vitriolic United States Senator in the state's newspaper of record.
That said, I'm not fond of the tradition of old pols of any stripe expecting an academic appointment as their golden parachute. It's probably too deeply imprinted in American higher education to disappear, but it largely disrespects the traditional means of academic appointment and advancement; and it panders to the politicization of American colleges and universities.