Since January, a peculiar public drama has been playing out within Maricopa Community College District’s five-member, publicly elected governing board, creating what observers call a “climate of almost paralyzing fear.”

Board members are accused of, among other things, micromanaging and intimidating employees, bickering and leveling unprofessional personal attacks against each other in public, undermining the chancellor’s authority and attempting to censor the student newspaper, all while making “inappropriate and offensive comments about race, ethnicity, religion and gender preference,” according to a report from an independent consulting group.

Board member Jerry Walker took it upon himself to rewrite the governance policies, deleting many references to diversity and sustainability and inserting measures to increase the power of the board at the expense of the chancellor. Those changes have not been adopted by the board but the attempt caught the attention of local media.

The Higher Learning Commission, the regional accreditation agency for the 10-college Maricopa district, became involved in May when it received an anonymous complaint, apparently from a Maricopa employee, describing the board’s turbulent behavior. Concerned that Maricopa was violating shared governance policies under which accreditation was granted, the commission asked Chancellor Rufus Glasper to bring in a group of consultants to review the board’s conduct.

In September, that group of former chancellors and trustees issued a scathing report on its findings, reprimanding the board for its lack of respect and civility and recommending members “cease and desist engaging in behaviors that characterize ‘rogue trustees’… .”

Rogue trustee? It’s the term coined by researcher Dr. Terry O’Banion in a series of reports identifying the bad apples in higher education.

“Rogue trustees run roughshod over the norms and standards of behavior expected of public officials appointed or elected to office. They place their own interests over the interests of the college,” wrote O’Banion, the director of the Community College Leadership Program at Walden University.

“They violate written and unwritten codes of conduct. They tend to poison the culture of the college instead of helping to create a sense of community, collaboration, innovation and common values. They become the catalyst for increased defensiveness, paranoia, subterfuge and fear. In short, they cause enormous damage.”