On Sept. 24, 2019, Dr. Brent Nelsen, a professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University, resigned his chairmanship of South Carolina’s Educational Television Commission (ETV), which oversees the state’s public television and radio. According to an article in The Post and Courier—written by Nelsen and two other frustrated, resigning members of ETV’s state commission, Karen Martin and Jill Holtt—“ETV is now controlled by moneyed outside interests.” In particular, the resigning members of the Commission took aim at the ETV Endowment, a separate, nonprofit entity whose website solicits donations that “go directly toward supporting the great programs you and your family love.”
Nelsen and the other resigning members of the Commission, who believe that “money raised in ETV’s name should be available to the network and the people of South Carolina with as few strings attached as legally possible,” insist that donations do not “go directly” to public programming as the Endowment’s website indicates. “Donors believe their money is going to ETV,” Nelsen, Martin and Holt explained, but “in fact, it goes to the endowment and ETV must petition to receive it.”
Since the Endowment’s foundation in 1977, “some tension has existed between ETV and its foundation (the Endowment),” wrote Nelsen in his resignation letter to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster. That said, most years the Endowment provided about 20% of ETV’s annual budget and “tensions were generally expected and manageable… but that began changing last year” disclosed Nelsen.
According to multiple reports, in the summer of 2018 the South Carolina’s House Legislative Oversight Committee recommended that ETV and the Endowment create a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to govern the relationship between the two entities. In Nelsen’s eyes, this was a “reasonable request.” After all, “millions of dollars pass between the two entities [ETV and the ETV Endowment] on an annual basis without the protection of a document agreed by both parties,” wrote Nelsen in his resignation letter.
Though in an article from The State the Endowment maintains that “funds are used specifically and only for the purposes donors intend them: to purchase and produce the much-loved programming that airs on public TV and radio stations across the state,” Nelsen and his colleagues report that the nonprofit foundation “adamantly rejected it [the MOU].” Moreover, Nelsen claims that, despite assurances that “ETV would be treated as an equal partner… plans had already been launched by the Endowment to undermine any agreement we might reach.” In September, his fears were confirmed when two new appointees—with connections to the Endowment—joined existing members of the Commission to form a controlling bloc, which Nelsen says is “taking its orders from the Endowment”
In an Oct. 3 article from The State, Coby Hennecy, executive director of the Endowment, said that she was confident that the longstanding relationship between ETV and the Endowment “will mend and [that the two organizations] will move forward as partners.” With Nelsen, Martin and Holt now gone—pushed out by the Endowment’s hostile takeover of the Commission—the door is certainly open for ETV and the Endowment to move forward together, not only as partners, but as one united and corrupt organization. In fact, as Nelsen alleged in his resignation letter, the new bloc has “already operated in an unethical manner.” Thus, despite championing ETV since his appointment by Governor Nikki Haley in 2011, Nelsen was unwilling to compromise on principle and his resignation represents a strong statement against the Endowment, their $24 million pot of assets (as reported by The State) and the group’s “politically powerful allies.”