ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 3, 1996 TAG: 9605030069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FAIRFAX
SOURCE: Associated Press
A member of George Mason University's governing board asked a school auditor for financial information about two student activists who opposed her appointment by Gov. George Allen.
M. Constance Bedell said she believes the two students may have been inappropriately involved in lobbying against Allen and his education initiatives while working for the state as school employees.
Bedell said the students are part of a long-planned campaign by GMU officials to discredit her and other Allen appointees who have raised questions about the direction of the 24,000-student school, the state's second-largest after Virginia Tech.
``There literally was a plan,'' she said.
W. Bryan Hubbard, chairman of GMU's Student Senate, and Hugh Martin Haley Jr., chairman of a state student government group, said their university jobs should not prevent them from being politically active.
The two wrote letters last winter opposing Bedell and two other Allen appointees to the board of visitors, Janice S. Golec and Marvin R. Murray. The three were approved by the General Assembly in February only after a public political fight.
Bedell asked a university auditor to find out whether Hubbard and Haley are receiving any income from the school in the form of wages or scholarships.
But other GMU board members accused her of trying to intimidate the students.
``It's political persecution, because these students spoke out against some of her positions,'' said James Hazel, another board member. ``It has gone beyond personal agendas. It's become a vendetta.''
Bedell said her critics are intent on making her look like ``a wacko in a witch hunt.''
Hazel, chairman of the board's audit committee, instructed GMU auditor Ken Hubble not to act on Bedell's April 17 request for records on the two students. Hazel also told Bedell she needs approval from the full board, because under federal law the university generally is barred from releasing such student information.
Her request stoked tensions on the Fairfax campus, already beset by disputes this year over academic standards, the school's close ties to Northern Virginia's business community and the search for a successor to outgoing President George W. Johnson.
Haley, 23, a fifth-year government student, said he works as many as 40 hours a week for GMU's communications department. Hubbard, 20, a junior, said he gets a monthly stipend of about $200 as leader of the Student Senate and just received a $1,000 leadership scholarship from the school's alumni association.
Both students said Bedell was harassing them for having opposed her appointment.
Bedell has been one of Johnson's harshest critics in the last year, accusing him of misusing university money by serving as chairman of a business group called the Northern Virginia Roundtable. The group met on campus to plan how it would lobby Richmond for more transportation and education money.
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