Storm in Las Vegas

For a long time, everything seemed to run smoothly for Edward Eyring, president of a little (1039) students), state-supported New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas. A scholarly man with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Eyring worked easily with his regents and faculty for twelve years, had even been largely responsible for getting his campus accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. But last March Republican Governor Edwin Mechem appointed a new set of mostly Republican regents. From that time on, trouble has brewed at Highlands.

The board's new president, Dr. H. M. Mortimer, happened to be Eyring's personal physician, and Dr. Mortimer had his own ideas about running the board. "It seems," he said straight off, "that it is the great American institution that as the change of political sentiment goes--to the victor belongs the spoils." Among the spoils he and his Republican colleagues wanted: twelve university jobs to be filled by people recommended by the Republican County Committee.

Who's Crazy? At this point, President Eyring protested. He did not mind so much creating two new jobs--kitchen supervisor and first grounds supervisor--which had never existed before. Nor did he mind that one Republican committeeman had recommended himself for one of these posts. But to fill the other jobs, he said, would mean firing ten loyal employees. This he refused to do.

At first, the board seemed to accept Eyring's argument. But it never again seemed to want to accept Eyring himself. It began to meet without him, often neglected to tell him what it had decided. One day the board abruptly proposed that Eyring be fired. "Medically speaking," Dr. Mortimer announced, "Eyring is psychoneurotic."

No such thing, cried Eyring: "Psychiatric quackery!" His wife and friends protested too. Indeed, said they, the whole thing seemed to be nothing but a Mortimer plot. Friends testified that one board member's wife had been overheard to declare that the board would "drive Eyring crazy, if he wasn't crazy already." Meanwhile, Mortimer's sister, who happened to be Eyring's secretary, was deliberately trying to sabotage him, Eyring charged, by turning away visitors to his office.

Whose Office? In the face of these protests, the board decided to compromise. Instead of firing the president, it sent him on a leave of absence for a rest. But when he returned last fall, the trouble started all over again. Eyring hired a lawyer, got testimony from a reputable psychiatrist that he was perfectly sound. Then, fully armed, he marched to a faculty meeting and denounced the board. After that, the board fired him and announced it was putting Professor Lisle Hosford of the philosophy department in his place.

Since there had been no hearing, Eyring declared the dismissal illegal. Thereupon, the board about-faced, held a quick hearing, and fired him again. Eyring still refused to go, kept right on reporting to his office as before. Finally, President Hosford had him arrested for disturbing the peace and for disorderly conduct.

Last week Highlands was still torn between its two presidents. Some facultymen wished that, right or wrong, Eyring would bow out quietly. But Eyring had no such intention. "If they can fire a president without a trial in this highhanded manner," said he, "what will they do with mere faculty members?" Last week the North Central Association started an investigation to find out.

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