By Patricia Alex and Abbott Koloff, Staff Writers, The Record.
Bowing to political pressure, Kean University has agreed to an outside review of racial bias charges made by a coalition of black ministers after the consultant originally hired to examine the claims was found to have a criminal record and questionable résumé.
The school will now retain retired New Jersey Supreme Court Justice John E. Wallace to review a compliance report it commissioned to address the issue, President Dawood Farahi said in a press release issued Friday afternoon.
Wallace’s review will likely go beyond the Kean report, commissioned after the ministers complained of institutional racism at the school and called for Farahi’s resignation.
From the outset, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, had pushed the university to hire Wallace, who is associated with a politically connected law firm in South Jersey.
The calls for an outside review intensified after a report in The Record last week detailed the record of Michael Barry Blackwell, the 59-year-old consultant Kean brought onboard to review the bias charges.
Blackwell, former pastor of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Westwood, has a record that includes bank robbery, a bad check and domestic violence.
More>>
