"Members of the House of Delegates offered a range of reactions Tuesday to William & Mary President Gene Nichol’s sudden resignation less than a week after a House committee questioned four appointees to the school’s Board of Visitors about controversies at the Williamsburg school.

Nichol, who quit effective immediately a few days after learning his contract would not be renewed this spring, charged in a letter that the board had offered him more money if he would leave without commenting about the reasons he believed were behind the departure.

“I read that statement. If it’s true he was offered money not to say why, that would be very troubling,” said Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville.

“If there’s a link between the grilling that the prospective board members received last week and his departure, it’s very troubling,” said Toscano, whose district includes the University of Virginia. “It has the potential to stifle academic freedom and to weaken the stature of our system of public education in the country, and maybe the world.”

The House Privileges and Elections Committee on Thursday asked the prospective board members if they approve of student activities fees funding a sex workers’ art show that Nichol allowed at the school last week or his actions in the temporary removal of a cross from Wren Chapel.

Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, said the questioning of the governor’s appointees to the board by the committee on which he serves should not be seen as the cause of Nichol’s departure.

“This was certainly not something that was being led out of Richmond in the General Assembly,” Bell said of the pressure for Nichol to resign.

“We were responding to a large number of comments, largely from alumni and students” that were critical of Nichol’s tenure as president the past 16 months, Bell said. “I gather the Board of Visitors was responding to his tenure. There was concern among the university community that his stewardship over the enormous intellectual capital he was overseeing, well, that they could do better.”

Bell agreed with Toscano that offering more money to Nichol for a silent departure would not be appropriate.

“I don’t know the sequence of events that led to this, but he should feel free to speak his mind,” Bell said. “Anything else would be inappropriate.”

Del. James M. Scott, D-Fairfax County, said late Tuesday that it was “a sad day for the college and for President Nichol. I wish them both well.”" (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, February 13, 2008)