Georgia’s public university system said on Tuesday that former Gov. Sonny Perdue was its sole finalist to become chancellor, a choice that has outraged some professors and led a regional agency to threaten the accreditation of the 26-school system.
The likely appointment of Mr. Perdue, a Republican, comes during a volatile time in Georgia politics, with the State Legislature considering several bills that would ban, or limit, how race and activism are taught in the classroom.
“A chancellor’s job is to defend the system against such bills,” said Matthew Boedy, a rhetoric and composition professor at the University of North Georgia and the president of the Georgia conference of the American Association of University Professors. “I can’t imagine Sonny Perdue doing that.”
