SUNY Chancellor James Malatras has submitted a letter to the SUNY Board of Trustees announcing his intention to resign his position effective Jan. 14, 2022.
Malatras has come under fire in recent weeks for making disparaging remarks about Lindsey Boylan during a public dispute regarding working conditions in the Governor’s Office.
Eighteen months later, Boylan became the first young woman to come forward with allegations of sexual harassment against former governor Cuomo.
In transcripts related to the Cuomo sexual harassment and assault investigations released by the Attorney General’s Office last week, it appears the SUNY chancellor wrote “Malatras to Boylan: Go f — k yourself,” and other disparaging comments, in a series of internal texts to colleagues in the Governor’s Office in 2019.
At the time of the texts, Malatras was the president of SUNY Empire State College and Boylan was a former employee of the Governor’s Office who had recently tweeted about workplace culture on the second floor of the Capitol, calling it a “toxic and demoralizing” experience.
Her tweet angered Cuomo staffers, with Malatras allegedly suggesting, “Let’s release some of her cray [crazy] emails” to attack her character.
This week, audio of Malatras berating an employee of the Rockefeller Institute of Government surfaced from 2017 when he was president of the institute.
Malatras, who was appointed the SUNY chancellor in August 2020 by then Gov. Andrew Cuomo, without a national search, wrote in his resignation that he does not want to be a “distraction” to the important work that SUNY needs to accomplish as the university system emerges from COVID-19.
“I believe deeply in an individual’s ability to evolve, change and grow,” Malatras wrote, “but I also believe deeply in SUNY and would never want to be an impediment to its success.”
Upon accepting his resignation, the SUNY Board of Trustees released the following statement:
“We want to thank Dr. Jim Malatras for his extraordinary service to the entire SUNY system. The past two years have been among the most trying in SUNY’s history—and Jim’s leadership and collaboration with our faculty and staff have allowed our institution to continue to thrive and serve our nearly 400,000 students at 64 campuses across our state safely and in person. He has been a champion for our students, for access, for equity, and for deeper public investment in this great institution. The entire board expresses our gratitude for his dedication and leadership.”
This story will be updated.
