Some guys get all the luck.

Call me old fashioned, but I thought that when a public institution hired someone for a big job, all qualified applicants would get the opportunity to compete for the position. If tax payers are footing the bill, shouldn’t the playing field be level and the process transparent?

Not at the University of Maine, apparently. After handpicking its spokesman for a six figure salary job, it now appears Eliot Cutler has been tapped to lead the new graduate business and law school, named the Alfond Professional and Graduate Center. How lucky for him!

This new school — combining a business and law graduate program — is purportedly going to take the beleaguered USM campus in a “transformative” direction.

Nobody at the University asked me what direction it might head in order to be truly transformative, but maybe that’s because I’m just a lousy civil rights lawyer who lost a statewide election with less than 15% of the vote.

If I had been asked, however, I would politely suggest that the appearance of a good ol’ boys club is nothing new. And surely not transformative.

Cynthia Dill

About Cynthia Dill

Cynthia Dill is a civil rights attorney with the Portland firm Troubh Heisler. She has served as a state senator and representative, and she is the former Democratic nominee in Maine's 2012 U.S. Senate race. She holds a BA from the University of Vermont and a JD from Northeastern University. She is admitted in the U.S. District Courts for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans’ Claims. Dill lives in Cape Elizabeth with her husband Tom and their two children.