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Azziz in a Courtroom? Oh, Pretty Please! Well, there goes the old Christmas list. Dear Mr. Claus: If you can’t pull off a seventh Super Bowl ring for my Steelers, I will certainly settle for news that Dr. Ricardo Azziz is going to have to go under oath concerning the lawsuit over the new GRU. Thanks! AR In case you have been under a rock, the Georgia Board of Regents is defending itself against a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Virginia-based Regent University. This week the state filed a dismissal request based on some rather strange interpretations of state law, which is ironic, given that this is an interstate lawsuit brought in federal court. Judge Randal Hall, himself a graduate of Augusta College (long may she hail!), gets to decide on that issue once he gets back from hearing a case involving the Obama Justice Department suing an all-black Board of Elections for various civil rights violations involving their majority black constituents (you figure that one out). While the Regent University lawsuit is certainly a strange twist in the now well-worn tale, unless Judge Hall tosses it outright, we will almost certainly get to see (at some point) the Right Reverend Dr. Azziz get to swear in a courtroom to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth concerning the fine details of the origins and coining of the infamous moniker Georgia Regents University. Please Lord above, to quote Captain Jean-Luc Picard, “Make it so!” It has long been my contention, based on numerous well-placed sources, that the entire shizzlestorm over the renaming of the new consolidated collegiate mutant once known separately as Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University (Medical College of Georgia), is 100 percent on the rather narrow shoulders of the enigmatic Azziz. Not only did he dream it up, I have been told that he sent members of his staff to every nook and cranny of the state, hunting down ever member of Georgia’s Board of Regents, to lobby for that despicable, silly, little name. The board approved the hideous tag even after being threatened with the suit in question.
25OCTOBER2012
The new GRU has turned out to be about as popular with locals as Martha Burk would be showing up the first week in April to host an Augusta-based revival of Lillith Fair. Knowing that he could face perjury charges and the end of his academic career as he knows it, what would be the chances that Azziz would fib under oath when he has to testify (or be deposed) in the case? At this point, the Eddie Munster Doppelganger might just be ready to head for the exit. I have been told he is livid that leading members of the Save the A committee met with Governor Nathan Deal, BOR Chancellor Hank Huckaby and Chairman Benjamin Tarburtton behind closed doors in Atlanta last week. Azziz was not on the guest list. As I first told my radio audience Monday, a replacement name is in the works, and soon all joy could be restored in Mudville (Augusta). Weeks ago, the governor’s office went to great lengths to make sure Azziz was seated front and center for the governor’s speech at the CSRA Regional Commission’s anniversary dinner, held Tuesday night. The governor’s office confirmed it, Azziz’s office confirmed it and it was set in stone for the night of the 23rd. Those confirmations dissolved first thing Monday morning as word of the Friday pow-wow drifted eastward to Augusta. Did I say dissolve? It was more like exploded. The good doctor is supposedly beside himself that his crap-laden new name may now be yanked, and he did not want to be in the same room as Governor Deal. Well, if that is true, at least he now knows how most of the senior staff and academic professionals at ASU and GHSU feel about him. Oh, and let me be the first to say that if the Save the A team gets a compromise that tacks the words “at Augusta” on the end of Georgia Regents University, this community is going to be about as happy as the kid who got a nice, sweet, red cherry lovingly placed upon the top of his freshly baked and warmly served piece of dog poop pie.
AUSTINRHODES
The views expressed are the opinions of Austin Rhodes and do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher.
AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
METROSPIRIT
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