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It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
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And I'm Melissa Block. Alabama State University will soon have its first woman president. But trustees at the historically black college put a stipulation in her contract that critics say is a setback for equality. The agreement says so long as she remains single, she's not allowed to live with a love interest. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT: Dr. Gwendolyn Boyd becomes president of her alma mater next month. Her contract requires the 58-year-old engineer to move into the president's home on the Alabama State University campus, in Montgomery. Another clause states, quote, "for so long as Dr. Boyd is president and a single person, she shall not be allowed to cohabitate in the president's residence with any person with whom she has a romantic relation."
LISA MAATZ: I would be amused if I wasn't so disappointed.
ELLIOTT: Lisa Maatz is vice president of government relations at the American Association of University Women.
MAATZ: At this point, are we going to be monitoring, like, sleepovers? Does she have a curfew? Like, you know, what are they doing in terms of this new president that they're bringing in? It felt disrespectful to me, quite frankly.
ELLIOTT: Boyd comes to Alabama State from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where she's executive assistant in the applied physics lab. She has a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Yale, and a doctorate in divinity from Howard University. President Obama recently named her to the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African-Americans. Maatz says Boyd has cracked a small circle. Only about 20 percent of universities have a woman president.
MAATZ: So she's still a pretty rare breed. I commend the Board of Directors for hiring a woman; for, you know, having those kinds of blinders and hiring the best candidate for the job. But I do wonder if there still isn't a bit of a double standard here, in terms of the kinds of rules and certainly, the kinds of expectations they have for a female president.
ELLIOTT: Maatz is not aware of similar contractual obligations elsewhere. There's an easy comparison right in-state. University of Alabama President Judy Bonner is unmarried, and her terms of employment contain no stipulations about her romantic life. Boyd did not return requests for an interview but through a spokesman at Alabama State, released a statement that said, quote, "I can read. I read my contract thoroughly, I knew what I was signing, and I have no issue with it at all."
Trustees also declined to discuss the matter. Judge Marvin Wiggins is vice chairman of the Alabama State University Board of Trustees, and headed up the search for a new president.
JUDGE MARVIN WIGGINS: The university is proud of our new president that we selected. We are honored to have her head our university. The contract has been signed and both parties have agreed to all the terms, and we are moving forward with our new president.
ELLIOTT: It's unclear just what the trustees mean by cohabitation. Is she barred from living with a partner, or from having any love interest stay in the residence? A statement attributed to Alabama State University officials says the clause has nothing to do with Dr. Boyd, but with the increasing scrutiny university presidents face as the top image-makers; the, quote, "living brand" of the schools that employ them.
A Montgomery native going home to her alma mater shouldn't need behavioral rules spelled out, says economist Julianne Malveaux, a former president of an historically black college in the South.
JULIANNE MALVEAUX: It really does raise a lot of questions about different expectations by gender. I mean, I would dare anyone to show me a single man's contract that said anything like that.
ELLIOTT: Now president emerita of Bennett College, Malveaux was single when she lived in the president's home on the Greensboro, N.C., campus. She says she often hosted overnight visitors to the school.
MALVEAUX: And of course, we kept expenses down by not having to put a lot of people in hotels. So given all that, who's going to go running around sniffing and saying OK, I've got to have people in - what do they register as, lover or non-lover?
ELLIOTT: But Malveaux says she doesn't fault Boyd for signing the contract, even with the questionable cohabitation language.
MALVEAUX: Dr. Boyd is an alum. She's very eager to turn the college around. These jobs as HBC presidents are really, opportunities and challenges to serve, and I think that that probably outweighed any of the nonsense of this contract.
ELLIOTT: Gwendolyn Boyd starts her new job as president of Alabama State February 1st.
Debbie Elliott, NPR News.