By Bob Braun/Star-Ledger Columnist
Gov. Chris Christie has had ample time and opportunity to eviscerate members of a defiant Rutgers Board of Trustees, but, so far, he hasn’t called them “dopes” or “idiots” or “jerks” or “numbnuts” or any of the other epithets he uses to intimidate those who disagree with him.
Is the governor mellowing? Nah.
More likely, Christie has finally run into a wall that, at least for the moment, can withstand the huffing and puffing. A wall of concerned, intelligent, competent, accomplished, often moneyed, either bipartisan or apolitical, unafraid men and women who stuck together to uphold their fiduciary responsibilities to a great institution — with the law on their side.
Clearly, that does not describe the Rutgers administration, which, in the past six months, has expressed more desire to dive into a financial abyss to take over part of the state’s medical school than it has to maintain the statewide integrity of the state university.
At Thursday’s trustees’ meeting, the one at which the board voted overwhelmingly to reject the loss of its Camden campus, top Rutgers administrators were clearly nervous about how and whether this show of courage and independence might draw a barrage from Christie and his Democratic allies in South Jersey who march to the wishes of political boss George Norcross.
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