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Nakamoto: Fired university employee was finalist for new gig in Southern System
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BATON ROUGE - Brandon Dumas removed his name from being a finalist for a high-ranking position at a campus in the Southern University System late Wednesday as word spread WBRZ was finalizing a report about his prospective hiring in the wake of Dumas' firing from Southern in 2017.
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After being fired from the Baton Rouge campus, Dumas unsuccessfully sued Southern. Until Wednesday, he was hoping to return to the university system.
Dumas was fired after a string of embarrassing news stories. He was placed on leave when a sex tape surfaced between an administrator and a student. While Southern never publicly tied Dumas to the recording, he was put on leave immediately after it surfaced and then fired. Around that time, the WBRZ Investigative Unit exposed he was sitting on the East Baton Rouge Parish Council on Aging Board illegally while living in Ascension Parish.
While a member of an academic board on campus, Southern also was at risk of losing its accreditation in 2017.
"The president felt that he needed to make a change in his cabinet, and we as a board supported the president's decision," Southern Board Chair Ann Smith said at the time of Dumas' termination.
But, despite all of those controversies, three weeks ago the WBRZ Investigative Unit learned Dumas was trying to get hired at the Southern University System, this time at SUNO.
Dumas was among three finalists for Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs at the New Orleans campus. Dumas was being considered for the job along with Stephan Moore and Adriel Hilton.
For three weeks, Southern University did not respond to questions and when WBRZ scheduled the story to be seen on the 6 o'clock news Wednesday evening, it released information. It confirmed Dumas was being considered but was not expected to be hired. Then, 90 minutes before the story was scheduled to be seen on TV, a spokeswoman said Brandon Dumas withdrew his application.
"A committee convened on behalf of SUNO chancellor James H. Ammons to assist with the selection of the vice chancellor for student affairs. The committee submitted three qualified individuals, unranked, to Chancellor Ammons," Spokeswoman Janene Tate said. "Chancellor Ammons performed his due diligence and subsequently selected Adriel Hilton to recommend to the Southern University System president and Southern University Board of Supervisors. This recommendation will be considered at the Board's next meeting on Friday, March 12."
Dumas has been working in Texas since he was fired from Southern University.
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