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In this file photo from 2013, Rutgers University President Robert Barchi and Board of Governors Chairman Gerald Harvey take questions from reporters following a board meeting. Harvey said today he is opposed to a bill proposed by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney that would expand the board to 19 members.

(Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger)

To the people who run Rutgers University, Stephen Sweeney has the look of a man who holds a grudge.

We’re not talking about Rutgers’ president, Robert Barchi, or other top administrators. This is about their bosses — the folks on the powerful board of governors and its advisory partner, the board of trustees.

For more than two years, Sweeney — the Senate president and the state’s top Democrat — has been meddling in Rutgers’ affairs. Each of his moves to reshape the university or its decision-making boards has fallen short: His failed effort to gift the Camden campus to Rowan University in 2012, his attempt to dissolve the board of trustees entirely in 2013, or this year’s salvo — a bill that would let the governor make even more appointments to the board of governors, thus weakening the trustees’ influence.

Twice, Sweeney hit an immovable wall: the Rutgers Act of 1956, which created the state university with a bulky leadership structure that protects it from political tampering.

This year, Sweeney wanted to expand the board of governors — which oversees Rutgers' $4 billion budget — from 15 members to 19, with new appointments from the governor and top legislators. The 1956 law is getting in his way again.

Sweeney has rewritten his proposal: the same expansion, but two new members would come from the board of trustees and two would need medical backgrounds, adding expertise as Rutgers absorbs several medical schools. All four would be appointed by the governor. The updated measure advanced in the Assembly last week, and should move swiftly through the Senate.

Sweeney insists his only interest is streamlining Rutgers. That no longer rings true. His bill is a badly disguised swipe at the trustees’ clout that doesn’t address any actual needs. If the board lacks doctors, the governor can fix that when he fills three soon-to-be-vacant slots.

Rutgers' governance has its problems. Particularly on the board of trustees, which has 59 voting members, and another 31 whose roles are less defined. Numbers like those defy smooth management. An internal Rutgers study, completed last year, recommends cutting it by half or more.

But the law says that’s a job for Rutgers, not lawmakers.

Sweeney can’t continue this campaign in good faith. The trustees defied him in 2012, so he tried to abolish them in 2013. His promise that the board of governors expansion is merely a management adjustment is difficult to swallow.

If this were a simple tweak, Sweeney might be more flexible. Instead, he pushes blindly forward, unconcerned with trivialities like state law. Facing questions about whether his bill could survive a court challenge, Sweeney said: “When you go to court sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” he said. “We’ll see what happens in court.”

Sweeney has made this fight personal. His board of governors makeover is bad law. Sweeney’s continued push to tilt control of the governing board opens the state university to increased political interference and patronage — threatening the school’s historic independence.

He should back down.

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