In the midst of a clout scandal at the school, Gov. Pat Quinn taught U of I students a truly valuable lesson this summer: Doing the right thing often means getting screwed.
Consider the case of the four Illinois trustees who resigned at Quinn's request in the wake of the school's admissions scandal. They did the right thing regardless of personal culpability and then watched two holdout trustees keep their jobs by threatening Quinn with a lawsuit and a race war.
If only they had thought of that.
"Ask yourself how would you feel if the governor asked, and you did the honorable thing and put the university first and did nothing wrong," former Trustee David Dorris told the AP.
Dorris didn't say it loud, but you can fill in the rest of that sentiment: Only to see the selfish and self-absorbed get rewarded.
Dorris and the others may get their jobs back yet; Quinn has the option of re-appointing trustees as he sees fit.
But you can bet they won't ever trust him again.
Politics
"It appeared the governor was really moving down a track of making sure everybody did step aside, and I don't know what happened," said former Trustee Edward MacMillan, who appears to have the best chance of re-appointment.
Quinn's spine transplant didn't take, is what happened.
"We still feel we did the honorable thing," former Trustee Kenneth Schmidt told AP.
But even on a college campus, that's not always enough.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.
