Academics

Alabama State University and New President Agree to Contract Forbiding Lovers From Staying Overnight

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Gwendolyn Boyd agreed to become the next president of Alabama State University, but her contract forbids her from having lovers stay at her school-provided residence for too many nights at a time.

According to a copy of the signed contract obtained by AL.com, Boyd will be paid $300,000 a year, get a car and the school's on-campus presidential residence. She will be leaving her position at Johns Hopkins University to return to her alma mater and will also receive up to $10,000 for her moving expenses.

At least one contract item was not so standard, however, and although she signed, the clause forbidding lovers from extended stays at her residence may be illegal.

The contract's clause reads: "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."

"I don't know of any state that has the right to invade someone's residence even if the state owns that residence," Raymond Cotton, a Washington lawyer told Inside Higher Ed. "To convey that residence and dictate what kind of romantic relationship you can have in that facility - I mean, she's not in prison."

Cotton has negotiated hundreds of academia president's contracts and said past Supreme Court decisions have prevented these types of clauses. Kenneth Mullinax, a university spokesman, pointed out that both parties agreed to the deal and neither side had an issue with the clause.

"The contract was negotiated between Dr. Gwendolyn Boyd and the Alabama State University Board of Trustees and both parties agreed to it and have no problem with it," he told Inside Higher Ed.

The contract is specifically targeted to lovers and not family members, who are allowed to stay for multiple nights in the presidential residence. It is unclear how the school would enforce the contract's clause, though. The wording does not say she cannot house friends, just people with whom she has "romantic relations."

"No board that I know of, certainly that I would advise, would have anything to do with a clause like this," Cotton said. "How would you enforce it? Would you go marching into a president's home and say, 'Stop that, get your hands off him or her!'"

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