              OF CHANDELIERS AND SHODDY PRACTICE IN ALABAMA:
                   ANOTHER NAC AGENCY ROCKED BY SCANDAL 
                            by Barbara Pierce 

Maybe there is something about work with the blind that attracts
disreputable people or encourages the proliferation of despicable human
impulses. Maybe, like televangelists, agency personnel in this field are
held in such reverence by the public at large that some of them begin to 
think they are above the law. Or perhaps it is merely the presence 
in the field of an accrediting body (NAC) that provides protection 
for virtually any shoddy practice (as long as only the blind are injured), 
perpetuating a network that inflates or fumigates professional reputations 
as required. NAC (the National Accreditation Council for Agencies 
Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped) may be dying, but it still 
provides a facade behind which many of its member agencies, and most 
especially their senior officials, seem to believe they can snuff 
out the dreams and sometimes the very lives of their clients or students 
while reaping substantial public commendation and personal financial 
rewards. 

Many of the blind in Alabama feel that Jack Hawkins, Dr. Jack Hawkins 
(who until July 2, 1989, was the President of the Alabama Institute 
for the Deaf and Blind at Talladega) is a perfect example of this 
breed. In the ten years (1979-1989) during which he served as president 
of this NAC- accredited agency, he severely damaged the Institute's 
sheltered workshop, using its entire $900,000 nest egg, according 
to workshop officials, to handle bills the Institute failed to pay 
after an agency reorganization. His administration consistently invested 
more funds in the School for the Deaf than the School for the Blind, 
with such unfairness that even the deaf raised objections. In the 
opinion of many of the alumni, the AIDB Foundation, which Hawkins 
established, materially contributed to the increased segregation of 
both blind and deaf students from the larger community. 

The casual hiring practices of Hawkins' administration led, according 
to many, directly to bringing a man to the Institute who murdered 
four people associated with the agency. And as if all this were not 
enough, when in the summer of 1989 he moved out of Talladega to take 
the position of Chancellor at Alabama's Troy State University, he 
left behind him police investigations and Ethics Commission probes 
into two separate matters. He also took with him without authorization 
thousands of dollars worth of Alabama state property. Last year it 
was the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (see the March, 
1989, Braille Monitor). Now it is Alabama. What NAC-accredited 
agency will be next, and what has yet to be uncovered?  

But back to Alabama. Has Hawkins' reputation been destroyed by these 
revelations? It has certainly been tarnished, but astonishingly he 
continues to serve as a member of the American Foundation for the 
Blind's Board, and he has moved onward and, one presumes, upward to 
a university presidency. As to the Alabama Institute for the Deaf 
and Blind, it is not at all astonishing that it continues to enjoy 
NAC accreditation. After all, what is NAC accreditation for? 
The job at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind which Hawkins 
left last summer at age forty-four paid him a reported salary of $85,000 
a year with an additional expense account of $4,000, and his business 
travel and entertainment costs were, of course, reimbursed in addition. 
But there is more: He lived in the President's Mansion (their apt 
terminology, not ours) at the Institute--a residence which included the
services of a maid and gardener, and there is still more: To keep 
the wolf from scratching the paint from the door of this NAC-accredited 
mansion the state also reportedly paid for utilities (including phone). 
But even all of that was apparently not enough. The Hawkinses (as 
press accounts make painfully clear in minute detail) were permitted 
to purchase with state funds and to use a mind-boggling array of luxuries. 
It is hard to believe that the Troy State Chancellorship can be more 
attractive than what Hawkins had, but why else would he leave the 
Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, where he had (as the saying 
goes) the world by the tail with a downhill drag? 

The Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind (AIDB) in Talladega
essentially provides such services as there are for the deaf and the blind
of the state. The Institute consists of the industries program (a large 
sheltered shop, producing an impressive array of products and providing 
jobs for more than 300 blind and physically handicapped people); the 
E. H. Gentry Technical School (offering limited rehabilitation and 
post-secondary training in some fifteen trades); the Helen Keller 
School (serving deaf-blind and other severely handicapped children 
from a number of states); the School for the Deaf; and the School 
for the Blind. The Governor of Alabama appoints a Board of Trustees 
to oversee this conglomerate, and the board hires the President of 
the Institute.  

Until the early 1980's the adult programs at the Institute had a more 
or less autonomous director, who (like the Institute's President) 
answered directly to the Legislature and prepared and managed a budget 
separate from that of the rest of the Institute. But all things change, 
and in September of 1979 thirty-four-year-old Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., 
was appointed President of the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and 
Blind. He was (according to those who observed him for the past decade) 
young, energetic, and ambitious--so ambitious that he was not content 
merely to be president of AIDB. He persuaded his board to give him 
extra power and responsibility. In addition to the presidency of the 
Institute they appointed him to be director of Adult Services so that 
he alone would report to the Legislature and so that only through 
his office would flow the budget appropriations for the entire
conglomerate. 

Presumably it was argued that this reorganization would result in 
eliminating duplication and waste, thus increasing the efficiency 
and cost-effectiveness of the entire administration. But the financial
figures that have now come to light reveal that something else happened
instead--something that had drained funds from Adult Services to the great
benefit of the School for the Deaf. In 1988 the Alabama Legislature
budgeted just under ten million dollars for the Institute's Children and
Youth Services, which includes the School for the Blind, the School for the
Deaf, the Helen Keller School, and the Parent-Infant Preschool Program.
Adult Services received an appropriation of about three and a half million
dollars, and the Industries Program got about one and a half million.
According to sources close to the Industries Program, this last
appropriation is intended to cover the expenses incurred in providing daily
transportation for workshop workers and in subsidizing the wages of those
workers who cannot work competitively. Though Industries' staff members
seem not to have access to the figures that would reveal how much profit or
deficit their program is running, they report that Adult Services 
was expected in 1988 to find almost three quarters of a million dollars 
as its contribution to what was called Shared Services--the concept here
being that each component of the Institute should contribute 
toward defraying the costs of the services that they all share. With 
a combined budget of less than half that of the Children and Youth 
Allocation, Adult Services was suddenly asked to cover sizable new 
chunks of the Shared Services budget and to do so without any increase 
in its budget. One is left to conclude that the Industries program 
must have been showing a profit since Adult Services did manage to 
produce the funds demanded for shared programs.  

According to a confidential document, which was inadvertently released 
by the Institute, during the first eleven months of the 1988 fiscal 
year Adult Services contributed the following amounts in several categories
of these Shared Services: $47,954 of the $65,000 salary paid to the 
Vice President whose duties included supervision of the Industries 
program; $134,000 for health services (according to Industries sources, 
this bought workers three hours a week of a nurse's time); $44,598, 
a little more than half of the President's salary; $13,739, about 
one quarter of the salary of the Executive Assistant to the President; 
$147,410, for the business affairs office; $26,583, half of the Development
Officer's salary; $13,062, half of the cost of running the Publications 
Office; $9,966, about a fifth of the Public Affairs Officer's salary; 
and $5,424, half of the salary of the President's maid--a salary 
which, unlike those of the professionals on the staff, would seem 
to be anything but queenly.  

Annualized, Adult Services assessments for shared services for the 
1988 fiscal year total $720,000, and Adult Services officials and 
area legislators reportedly pleaded with the Institute's President 
and the Board to reduce the amount for fiscal 1989. But for whatever 
reason, the 1989 assessment against Adult Programs was set at $801,000. 
Also effective in 1989, the Board voted to transfer $500,000 from 
the Adult Programs unrestricted fund--money not provided by the 
state for specific uses and therefore, almost certainly, profits earned 
by the blind workers and plowed back into the Industries Program--to 
be used for "future funding projects," according to a resolution 
passed at the August, 1988, Board of Trustees meeting. Apparently 
the fund transfer will enable the institution to use the money for 
construction projects on its school campuses.  

At the same time all this was happening, the sheltered shop staff 
was learning the hard way that their bills seemed to be the last ones 
paid by the Institute, now that the Industries Program was not
independently responsible for its own budget and bill-paying. According to
those close to the Industries Program, by March of 1988 the shop owed some 
1.3 million dollars to suppliers--a revelation which the staffers 
found astonishing and infuriating. Even National Industries for the 
Blind made inquiries about when the Alabama shop planned to pay its 
outstanding bills. Rumor has it, however, that by September of 1989 
the amount owed was down to $198,000 and that at the end of the year 
the slate had been wiped clean. But a decade ago the Industries Program 
had a nest egg of $900,000 set aside for large equipment purchase 
and meeting emergencies--a pot of gold which seems to be entirely 
gone now. Shop workers and management don't usually agree on much 
at Alabama Industries for the Blind, but the one clear exception is 
the notion that merging their Program with the rest of the Institute 
under Dr. Hawkins has been bad for the shop and bad for the state's 
blind adults. 

In the Alabama Code of 1975 the Legislature clearly established the
separation between Children and Youth Services and the Adult Programs, 
so when Hawkins made his grab, there was a growing restiveness. By 
the late 1980s concerned citizens encouraged a local legislator (Clarence 
Haynes) to request the Alabama Attorney General to render an opinion 
on the legality of the Hawkins reorganization. On February 24, 1989, 
the Attorney General handed down his opinion, clearly stating that 
the Hawkins reorganization is illegal. Here is what the Attorney General 
said: 
                               ____________________ 
                               Don Siegelman 
                               Attorney General 
                               Montgomery, Alabama  
    

                               February 24, 1989 
 
Honorable Clarence E. Haynes 
Member, House of Representatives 
Talladega, Alabama  
 
Dear Representative Haynes: 

This opinion is issued in response to your request for an opinion 
from the Attorney General. 
 
Question: Can the department of adult blind and deaf be combined 
with the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind? 

Facts and Analysis: The statute establishing the department of adult 
blind and deaf is found at Code of Alabama 1975, Section 21-1-15. 
It states: 
"There shall be at the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind a 
separate department of adult blind and deaf. Legislative appropriations 
for the department shall be made separate and apart from the legislative 
appropriations made for the support and operation of this institute. 
The department shall have the authority to establish and to operate 
a library service for blind, visually handicapped, deaf, or severely 
handicapped persons, and the department is hereby designated as the 
official agency to operate a regional library for the blind, visually 
handicapped, deaf, and severely handicapped."  [In 1976 then Governor 
Wallace transferred authority for the library to the State Library.] 
The fundamental rule in construing a statute is to ascertain and effectuate
legislative intent as expressed in the statute. This intent may be 
gleaned from the language used, the reason and necessity for the act, 
and the purpose sought to be obtained. Shelton v. Wright, 439 So.2d 
55 (Ala.1983). 

Section 21-1-15 states that the department of adult blind and deaf 
is to be a separate department in the Alabama Institute for the Deaf 
and Blind. According to the statute, legislative appropriations for 
the department are to be made separate and apart from legislative 
appropriations made for the support and operation of the institute. 
These appropriations are to be used solely for the operation of the 
Adult Deaf and Blind Department. The department is authorized to establish 
and to operate a library service for blind, visually handicapped, 
deaf, and severely handicapped persons and is designated as the official 
agency to operate a regional library for such persons. Therefore, 
the language used in Section 21-1-15 and the purpose in enacting the 
statute indicate that it was the intent of the legislature that the 
department of adult blind and deaf was to be separate from the Alabama
Institute for the Deaf and Blind. Furthermore, my research does not 
reveal any authority that would permit the department to be combined 
with the Institute for the Deaf and Blind. 

Conclusion: The department of adult blind and deaf cannot be combined 
with the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. 

I hope this sufficiently answers your question. If our office can 
be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us. 
 
                                 Sincerely, 
                                 
                                 Don Siegelman 
                                 Attorney General 
____________________ 

That is what the Attorney General said, but almost a year later it 
is still not clear what impact the opinion will have on business as 
usual at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. The Board is 
the body that will have to change the institution's course, and forcing 
that action may require a lawsuit, which several people with whom 
we talked seem prepared to undertake if necessary.  

In the meantime one might be pardoned for hoping that, even if the 
blind adults in Alabama are suffering because of shared services and 
mingled funding, blind children, at least, might be benefiting from 
the skewed system. Alas, this does not seem to be the case. A document 
circulated to the Board of Trustees at their August, 1989, meeting 
indicates that during the past ten years $16,272,000 has been spent 
for renovation of existing structures, construction of new buildings, 
and maintenance of the buildings and grounds. Of this amount $9,569,000 
was spent on the School for the Deaf and $2,411,000 on the School 
for the Blind. In fact, the physical plant of the School for the Deaf 
received about one and a half times the amount spent on the facilities 
of all other programs combined. The disproportion has become so lopsided 
that the Board of Trustees' deaf consumer representative recently 
recommended that more money be allocated to the School for the Blind, 
though there is no evidence yet that her plea will be heeded.
Parenthetically one might inquire whether the academic programs of these
schools are so sound that there really is sixteen million dollars available
to lavish on physical plant and presidential luxuries, important as
buildings and luxuries may be. Many in the blind community and several in
the Alabama Legislature believe that the answer should have been no. But 
Dr. Hawkins clearly recognized the advantage of heading a facility 
that looked attractive, whether or not the students were flourishing 
or, for that matter, safe.  

For example, the two vans used by the School for the Blind both have 
driven, according to the School's principal, more than 200,000 miles. 
One is a 1975 model; the other was built in 1977. The Institute's 
director of transportation has said that one of the two is not road-worthy 
for any extended driving, but as far as is generally known, there 
are no imminent plans to replace either vehicle. 

We are informed that according to a recent furniture bid, the cost 
of furnishing and equipping the new student center at the School for 
the Deaf was $198,000 (with $105,000 being spent on furniture alone). 
On the other hand, the amount spent on furniture in the entire School 
for the Blind during the decade was $220,000. The new deaf student 
center contains a conference table, costing a princely $5,500, and 
448 stacking chairs, each of which cost $46. During a recent alumni 
event at the School for the Blind, attendees report that the folding chairs
they were using kept collapsing under them. The only other 
startling expenditures on the furniture bid are a $2,000 desk and 
several $238 trash baskets. It is puzzling to know how one could manage 
to spend $238 on a single indoor trash receptacle, but it must be 
gratifying for the deaf students to know that even their trash is 
departing in high style.  

If the school-age blind population being served in Alabama had been 
shrinking more rapidly than the deaf population during the past decade, 
marked differences in the funds expended on the schools might be
understandable. 

But ten years ago 480 deaf students were enrolled at that school, 
and today there are 240--a decrease of 50 percent. In 1979 140 
students attended the School for the Blind; today there are 130--a 
decrease of less than 10 percent. The Helen Keller School served 135 
children in 1979 and enrolls 90 today, 60 of whom are visually impaired. 
The Parent-Infant Preschool Program works with about 125 blind children 
and roughly the same number of deaf children. The E. H. Gentry facility 
has historically served a population, sixty percent of whom are visually 
impaired, and about two-thirds of the adults working at Alabama Industries 
for the Blind are blind and about one-third sighted or otherwise
handicapped. 

It is clear from these figures, reported by an Institute official 
as having been drawn from the Alabama Institute's own annual report, 
that today a majority of the people served by the institution are 
blind.  Some observers have worried about what they see as the Institute's 
increasing tendency under the Hawkins administration to segregate 
its students from the greater Talladega community. Hawkins' AIDB
Foundation--one of those convenient nonprofit reservoirs of money that
officials can channel in directions not approved by the legislature--built
a chapel that, according to members of the alumni, the students didn't 
need. These members of the alumni believe that it was preferable for 
youngsters to attend churches in the town rather than having separate 
services in a private facility. But the chapel was built to serve 
the students whether they liked or needed it or not, and as a result, 
the inmates of the Institute were separated still further from the 
town.  

During the early eighties, apparently as a cost-cutting measure, the 
Hawkins administration decided to reduce the Institute's security 
staff. At the same time observers close to the institution report 
that it was engaging in the kind of sloppy hiring practices that led 
to such catastrophic results at the Florida School for the Deaf and 
Blind. (See the March, 1989, Braille Monitor.)  

We are told that a man was hired to offer both deaf and blind youngsters 
at AIDB firsthand experience in artistic expression, without an interview 
or research into his background. The new employee brought a friend 
(Daniel Spence) to Talladega with him who had jumped bail in San Francisco 
and escaped from prison in Nevada, where he had been serving a sentence 
for stabbing a man to death in a homosexual brawl. This second man, 
too, began establishing contact with blind and deaf students as a 
volunteer aide. He described himself around town as working at the 
Institute, according to sources close to the situation. But again, 
so far as we can determine, no effort was made to learn anything about 
the man.  

Probably on February 21, 1986 (not all the bodies were discovered 
for some time), Danny Lee Siebert (also known as Daniel Spence) entered 
an apartment building housing disabled people and killed two deaf women and
the two small sons of one of them. Sometime later in the 
rampage he also killed his next door neighbor and abandoned her body 
in a wooded area. Perhaps a routine background check, a face-to- face 
interview, or the presence of security officers on campus would have 
done nothing to prevent what happened, but one wonders. NAC, of course, 
showed no public concern. Whether they were privately concerned, we 
have no way of knowing. Only one of the deaf women was actually a 
current Institute student (the other was an alumna), so neither was 
enrolled in the School for the Blind. The fact that blind Institute 
students could just as easily have been the ones killed was immaterial. 
Cavalier hiring practices and cost- cutting in security measures presumably
have nothing to do with standards and quality of services in the NAC 
lexicon.  

In May of 1989 Dennis Hartenstine, Executive Director of NAC, boasted 
to blind consumers in Michigan: "I assure you, if anything ever 
occurred and our commission [NAC's Commission on Accreditation] was 
concerned about the safety of the organization, the safety of the 
individuals being served and the accredited body did not take action 
to make changes, the Commission would withdraw accreditation." 
Viewed in the uncompromising light of Florida and Alabama, NAC's promises, 
like its standards of excellence, can be seen for what they are--a sham and
a mockery.  Apparently everyone in Talladega worked together to hush things
up. Only a few people, labeled by the Institute as blind trouble-makers, 
asked difficult questions, and no one in the administration of the 
Institute or the accrediting body that was supposed to lend it
respectability was visibly interested in seeking hard answers.  

Hawkins did summarily fire the art instructor, but the instructor 
was, of course, no longer in touch with the murderer, who had fled 
the scene of the crime in a car belonging to one of his victims. The 
murderer was caught eleven months later and is now appealing his sentence 
to die in the electric chair.  

In summary it seems clear that during the years of the Hawkins
administration students and clients in general, and the blind in
particular, have gotten short shrift at the Alabama Institute. Two things
happened in the spring of 1989, however, that suggested a change might be
in the wind. In May, Calvin Wooten (one of the two blind Trustees) was 
elected Chairman of the Board--the first blind person to be so 
honored. But according to the blind, he has remained deaf to their 
concerns. Staff members at the School for the Blind report that he 
does not visit the school or talk with them about their problems. 
He does, however, attend some School for the Deaf football games. 
 
As the situation worsened throughout 1989, the blind of Alabama collected 
about 250 names on a petition asking the state's governor to remove 
Mr. Wooten from the Board. The signers included virtually everyone 
who could be considered a leader in the blind community in Alabama. 
Unanimity among the blind has rarely before existed on any issue in 
the state, but the governor refused seriously to consider either their 
request or the underlying crisis that the very existence of two
hundred-fifty names on such a petition demonstrated. It goes without saying
that NAC did not disaccredit the institution or show any visible concern. 
Wooten can hardly be blamed for all the difficulties facing the blind 
at the Institute. After all, he has only chaired the Board since May 
of 1989. Hawkins is clearly much more responsible for the damage to the
programs for the blind.  

Just about everyone in the blind community was, therefore, delighted 
to learn that on July 2, 1989, Dr. Hawkins was to resign in order 
to take the post of Chancellor at Alabama's Troy State University 
on September 1. In a state with a well-entrenched old-boy network 
and with an official as tightly tied into that network as Hawkins 
appears to be, there was no hope of making him accountable for what 
he had done to damage the Institute or the blind, but at least he 
would be leaving. Perhaps someone else could be encouraged to assist 
the blind. So Hawkins was wined and dined. The Alumni Association 
of the School for the Deaf presented him with a $1,500 set of golf 
clubs. The AIDB Foundation (the one he had established) bought up 
the remainder of his country club membership; the new chapel that 
no one wanted was named after him; and in general he was told what 
a fine fellow he was and what a wonderful job he had done. The blind, 
for the most part, remained silent. 

Then bits of information began to surface. Alabama has an ethics law 
with a provision that prevents the president of an institution from 
influencing the hiring of his wife. It appears, however, to an objective 
outsider that Hawkins wanted his wife to do some consulting work for 
the Institute in the Parent-Infant Program. According to some sources, 
she had been doing the work for years, and it only seemed fair for 
her to be paid for it. Others maintain that she didn't even begin 
to earn the salary she was eventually paid. Hawkins apparently dreamed 
up a scheme which would enable him to funnel some $24,000 of Institute 
money to his wife through the University of Alabama at Birmingham, 
an institution with which Mrs. Hawkins had previously been associated. 
When the story eventually blew open, it was covered by the Daily Home, the
local Talladega paper. This is the way the Daily Home reported the story in
late September, 1989: 
____________________ 

                  Preuitt [State Senator]: Hawkins Abused
                         Power as AIDB President 
                            by Denise Sinclair 
 
Controversy continues to surround former Alabama Institute for Deaf 
and Blind President Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr. This time state Senator 
Jim Preuitt is questioning whether a contract allowing Hawkins' wife 
Janice to work as a consultant through the University of Alabama at 
Birmingham is ethical. 

Preuitt said Tuesday, "He (Hawkins) primarily contracted with 
the University of Alabama for $24,350 for a part-time job for Mrs. 
Hawkins. The money was funneled from AIDB to UAB. It may not be illegal, 
but it sure sounds unethical." 

Preuitt said there is no indication the Board approved the contract, 
which ran from June, 1988, to May, 1989. 

The contract was a cooperative agreement between AIDB and UAB for 
"the exchange of professional and expert services." It involved 
the AIDB Parent-Infant Program, which provides quality services to 
the hearing and visually impaired pre-school child. According to the
contract terms, Mrs. Hawkins "developed, promoted, and evaluated" the
program. Under the contract, Mrs. Hawkins received $22,000 for consultant
services, $1,350 for travel and $1,000 for materials and supplies. 
AIDB reimbursed the University of Alabama for the services at a rate of
$2,030 per month under the contract. Also, according to the contract, 
the services were for a two-thirds position. 

Hawkins signed the contract for AIDB. Signatures of Mr. Dudley Pewitt, 
senior vice president for administration at UAB, and Dr. Keith D. 
Blayney, dean of the School of Health Related Professions, were also 
on the contract, which was dated May 17, 1988. 

Preuitt pointed out that the contract doesn't say Mrs. Hawkins would 
be the recipient. "I do know she paid into the Alabama Retirement 
System for a salary of $22,000 during that period. I think it was 
cut and dried. It's a cowardly way to put your wife on the local payroll. 
I questioned Hawkins about this in January in Montgomery as to whether 
or not his wife was on the payroll. He said I was getting too personal." 
The senator said he had the AIDB minutes researched and there is "no 
authorization by the Board" for this contract. "This is another 
thing where the public will have less confidence in schools. These 
misuses of funds are reasons the public will not vote on new taxes. 
Institutions must be accountable." 

Preuitt added, "The local legislators have been trying for five 
years to get redirection of funding at AIDB to children and adults 
rather than beautification. We did not want to do what we did in
Montgomery. But that was the only way we could get Jack Hawkins' attention.
We wanted questions answered. Many people thought we were too tough on 
him at that time.  We've just scratched the surface. There is so much abuse
by this (Hawkins) administration. It got to the point where he thought he 
was above the law." 

Rep. Clarence Haynes said he questions the legality of the contract 
or agreement. "I understand the contract was typed at AIDB. This 
is just another example of mismanagement of funds. We have been trying 
to correct this for a couple of years. It's one of many incidents 
that are not right. We've (the local legislative delegation) been 
outgunned and outwritten in the newspapers." 

AIDB Board member Ralph Gaines said he had no knowledge of the agreement 
between the Institute and the University of Alabama. "I've been 
on the Board 2-1/2 years. I don't recall any discussion or Board action 
on this contract between UAB and AIDB, particularly Mrs. Hawkins." 
Jim Bosarge, assistant director of University Relations at UAB, said, 
"The consulting agreement was new in 1988. Mrs. Hawkins had maintained 
a part-time position with UAB since moving to Talladega. She is a 
long-term employee of UAB since the mid-1970s. The AIDB Field Services 
Office requested a person for consultation purposes prior to the agreement.
She had been serving AIDB needs on a voluntary basis for several 
years. They requested more of her time, which led to the consulting 
agreement."
 
Bosarge said the University had information from the Ethics Commission 
regarding Mrs. Hawkins' employment. "It's my understanding it 
was OK for her to consult with AIDB in one of her specialties if it 
occurred through another institution. She was a part-time employee 
of UAB. There was no reason for her not being hired as a consultant. 
No one else in the area had the skills to do the work."  AIDB Board
Chairman Calvin Wooten of Anniston declined comment on the agreement. 
The Daily Home was unable Tuesday afternoon to obtain information 
from the Ethics Commission in Montgomery regarding the matter. 
Preuitt and Haynes both stressed they feel strongly about public
institutions' being more accountable for citizens' tax dollars and the
recent abuses at AIDB point to this fact. 
____________________  

That's what the newspapers were saying, but that was far from all. 
Alabama also has a law that prevents anyone from buying state property 
except at auction. The salary and perquisites--a tax-free expense 
account and a mansion with maid, gardener, and utilities--bestowed 
upon Dr. Hawkins by the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind out 
of funds provided by the state's taxpayers can go a long way in a 
small southern town, where the cost of living is lower than in most 
cities; and plenty of people, like the Hawkinses' maid, scrape along 
on less than $11,000 a year. If the state had provided Dr. Hawkins 
nothing more, this job would still, by any standard, have been generously 
(perhaps too generously) remunerative. But apparently Alabama (whether 
it knew it or not) was prepared to provide the Hawkinses with the 
use of a kingly array of luxuries in their residence. One state official 
told the Braille Monitor with disgust that Mrs. Hawkins loved 
wallpaper more than any woman he had ever seen. "Seemed like there 
was new wallpaper and carpet about every six months."  

When the time came to move from Talladega, the Hawkinses apparently 
couldn't bear to leave behind some of the lovely things the state 
had purchased. According to Dr. Hawkins, on August 17, 1989, he wrote 
a check in the amount of $2,781.65 to cover the cost of the items 
he wished to purchase--no doubt appropriately discounted because 
they were used merchandise. It is clear that Dr. Hawkins knew about 
the state prohibition on outright purchasing of Alabama property because 
he had someone from the Institute call the state's Ethics Commission 
to inquire how a person could legally buy a desk from the state. Probably 
assuming that the desk in question was an old and beloved memento 
of years of service, the state official said that if a check were 
written for the market value of the piece, it would pass muster, or 
at least no one would probably bother to ask questions. This is the 
way the Daily Home told the story on September 28, 1989. As 
you read, ask yourself what happened to the desk in question. Was 
the initial question asked about a desk simply because it would sound 
more innocuous that way? Was the desk in question never returned? 
How many other objects slipped through the cracks? Here is one of 
the many news stories printed at the time:  
                           ____________________ 

                          Ethics Complaint Filed 
                           Against Dr. Hawkins 
                            by Denise Sinclair 
 
An ethics complaint was filed Tuesday against former Alabama Institute 
for Deaf and Blind President Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr. for purchasing 
furniture and china from the president's mansion. 
Tom Mills of Tuscaloosa, a 1981 graduate of AIDB's E. H. Gentry Technical 
Facility, filed the complaint with the state's Ethics Commission. 
In his complaint to the Commission, Mills said Hawkins improperly 
used his position to buy the furniture that belonged to the Institute. 
Wayne Hall, assistant chief examiner with the state Examiner of Public 
Accounts Office, said Wednesday afternoon that state law prohibits 
such a sale. 

"State property must be declared surplus property and sold according 
to the rules and regulations of the Alabama Department of Economic and
Community Affairs," Hall said in a telephone interview from 
Montgomery. Hawkins resigned from AIDB in the summer to become chancellor
of the Troy State University System on September 1. Before leaving AIDB,
Hawkins bought the furniture and china for $2,890. The items had been in
the president's home on South Street. The items were a nest of tables,
curio cabinet, a set of Lennox China (six place settings), two place
settings of Lennox China, a set of queen size bedding, one bed frame, an
entertainment center, a butcher block, and one desk. These items were
returned to the mansion Wednesday afternoon, according to an AIDB official,
and Hawkins will receive a refund for the items he purchased. AIDB
officials have said they were advised in mid-August by an official 
of the state examiner of public accounts that the sale would be legal 
provided Hawkins paid fair market value. 

Hall said his office records show the initial contact was made by 
an AIDB official on Monday. "We received a call on Monday from 
someone at the school concerning the sale of a desk and the proper 
procedures. The other items were not mentioned," he said. 
Ethics Commission Director Melvin Cooper would not comment on the 
complaint, saying state law prohibits him from doing so. 
Mills said, "I'm not accusing Dr. Hawkins of anything. I'm concerned 
about the public picture statewide regarding presidents of universities 
and institutions such as this who spend money on lavish lifestyles 
instead of education. The voters in this state have a right to put 
their feet down when it comes to boards of trustees around Alabama 
who buy things like the entertainment center and china. Bibb County 
next door to me can't afford textbooks. The public should be incensed 
by this." 

Mills said that until this lavish spending is stopped by presidents 
of institutions, the public will keep saying "no" to any additional tax
moneys or funds for education. "Until these big educational people quit
living lavish lifestyles, education in Alabama will suffer," he concluded. 
State Representative Clarence Haynes and Senator Jim Preuitt are calling 
for an investigation concerning other items that were removed from 
the president's home before Hawkins left office. The items were returned 
Sunday. Hawkins said the items were inadvertently packed by movers. 
Bibb Thompson with Thompson Company, which moved some of the Hawkins' 
furniture, said, "My company employees only inventory and load 
what they are told to load by the person or family we are moving." 

____________________ 

So said the Daily Home, and a careful reading of this article 
reveals that the entertainment center, nest of tables, Lennox china, 
etc., is not all that left Talladega with the Hawkinses. In fact, 
some who lose no love for Dr. Hawkins suggest that the financial
transaction on August 17 provided convenient camouflage for the
disappearance of a much longer list of items--a list as astonishing for its
variety as for its value. But this is only speculation. The facts are clear
enough. The Hawkinses have explained and explained that they were 
both running in and out of the house all day while the movers were 
there to pack up their possessions. They maintain that they had no 
idea what was being packed because the movers insisted on wrapping 
the things they were to move. But the maid reports that Mrs. Hawkins told
her to instruct a workman to take down a chandelier for packing, 
so one suspects that a good deal of planning went into the preparations 
for moving despite the protestations of the Hawkinses that they never 
intended to take state property with them.  

When the absence of the valuables was noticed, the Hawkinses agreed 
to return them. Hawkins arranged to bring back the items on a Sunday 
so that he and members of the Board of Trustees could go over the 
inventory list and check off the returned goods. Hawkins just happened 
to arrive in Talladega Sunday morning instead of Sunday afternoon 
as agreed. He says he decided to stack the things in the president's 
mansion just to get them deposited before going to a luncheon engagement. 
He says he didn't know that the door locks had been changed, which 
meant that his key (it isn't clear why he still had a key to the mansion 
at all) didn't fit in the front door. He reports that he then found 
a side door unlocked, through which he carried the things he was returning.

There is now no record of how closely the list of items Hawkins returned 
resembles the list of those reported as missing--one of the objectives 
that the Institute should have had in mind when it arranged to have 
its Trustees present when the goods were returned.  A neighbor, however,
had noticed someone carrying goods between a van and the house and
apparently concluded that the mansion was being burgled. She called
Representative Clarence Haynes, who in turn called the police. [It is worth
considering why a citizen, seeing such unusual behavior, would not call the
police directly. Could it have been fear of tangling personally with the
powerful Alabama Institute? If the observer recognized the ex-president,
one can hardly blame her for wishing to avoid being pulled into a legal
matter.] In any case, the police dashed to the scene to find the esteemed
ex-president of the Institute surreptitiously slipping state property back
into the house. Perhaps it really was all an unfortunate mistake--perhaps.
But credulity has its limits somewhere. Here is an excerpt from the Daily 
Home's account of the story on September 27, 1989:  
____________________ 

                    Legislators Call for Investigation 
                              of AIDB Matter 
                            by Denise Sinclair 
 
TALLADEGA--State Representative Clarence Haynes and Senator Jim 
Preuitt are calling for a full investigation into an incident in which 
items, pieces of furniture and silver, were taken from the president's 
mansion at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. 

Former AIDB President Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr. and several others returned 
Sunday the items, which were discovered missing following an inventory 
of the mansion. Hawkins assumed the chancellorship at Troy State University
on September 1. 

Haynes got a phone call Sunday morning from someone who saw a van 
parked at the mansion, and thought the residence was being burglarized. 
Haynes reported it to the Talladega Police Department, who on checking 
found Hawkins there returning the missing items. Haynes picks up the story
from there. "I had zero knowledge of any of this happening before Sunday
morning. I received a call that someone had broken into the president's
home at AIDB. I don't know who called. I assumed it was someone in the
neighborhood who spotted the van. I called the police. The police later
called me. I met them there at the home. I was told the Hawkins family had
brought some things back from Troy State in a Troy State University van. I
understand two weeks ago some AIDB officials had reported a list of items
missing from the home after Dr. Hawkins left. Through business services and
controller's office inventory and with the aid of purchase orders, a list
of items was put together that were taken from the home. Hawkins was called
and ordered to bring the items back. Had it not been for AIDB Board member
Ralph Gaines, these items probably would not have been returned."
 
It was reported by other news agencies in the state and in the Daily 
Home Tuesday afternoon the incident was a misunderstanding according 
to Gaines and Board Chairman Calvin Wooten. 

In a statement to the Daily Home Tuesday afternoon, Gaines 
said, "The Daily Home has reported I have said there was 
a `misunderstanding' regarding recent events involving the President's 
home at AIDB and some of its contents. I have not communicated with 
anyone at the Daily Home until I saw this report in the paper. 
The only misunderstanding I know of was the time and manner certain 
items which had been removed were to be returned to the home." 
Gaines went on to say that Hawkins had done a good job at AIDB and 
as a Board member he hopes no adverse effects on the Institute, its 
children, and adults would occur because of this issue. "I hope 
we can continue with the good work that's going on, and I am sorry 
these things have occurred."
 
After learning of the incident and not knowing the full story, Haynes 
asked Board Chairman Calvin Wooten, "What's going on?" Wooten, Haynes
noted, said the items had been "inadvertently taken by movers." 
Wooten in a telephone conversation Tuesday afternoon called the incident 
"a comedy of errors." He said, "Everything has been brought 
back to the mansion. I knew myself he was coming Sunday. I didn't 
go into any details with him on returning the items and volunteered 
to help him if he needed assistance. He said he had it under control. 
It didn't cross my mind the former president would be accused of breaking 
into his former home. I contend it was no break-in. All the items 
are inventoried and everything is back in place."
 
The representative questions why Hawkins returned to Talladega Sunday 
morning instead of the appointed time of 3:30 p.m. the same day. "He 
had an appointment with the Board at 3:30 Sunday to return the items. 
I have not talked to him. I do know he and the others went in the 
house early and put the items back unknown to the current resident, 
Dr. Erskine Murray. I did not know at the time when I called the police 
it was Dr. Hawkins. But I want to point out he had no business in 
that house."
 
Haynes said that in talking with Wooten, he feels the Board chairman 
wants to "cover up" the matter. "This is the kind of thing 
that has been going on for years, and this proves what some of us 
have been trying to point out about the Hawkinses' blatant disregard 
of the taxpayers' money. I will ask for further investigation by the 
Board into this, and also I want the Board to check out the possibility 
of items bought without purchase orders that are not on the inventory 
list."
 
Haynes commended board member Gaines for his effort "to do the 
right thing."  He added, "I only wish the chairman (Wooten) 
could see things the way Gaines does."  He concluded, "Wooten has tried to
shield some of this from the public. It is not right, no matter who it is,
to take property that doesn't belong to you. I think people deserve to see
the truth--good, bad, or indifferent."  Preuitt echoed Haynes' sentiments
and said he will call for a full investigation. 

"From all indications the items were taken from the mansion and 
moved to Troy. The big question is do these items belong to the school, 
the state, or the taxpayers, and why would they be moved? The merchandise 
was asked to be returned. Hawkins had moved out almost 30 days ago, and he
returned with the items Sunday. Why move the items out if they didn't
belong to you and then slip them back in? Dr. Murray is living there, and
he was not home when this took place. It's wrong. Why take the goods 
to begin with when they belong to the taxpayers? This warrants a full 
investigation," Preuitt said. 

He, too, thinks a coverup is occurring. "They say the movers got 
the items by mistake. That will not hold water. Most of the merchandise 
belonged to the Institute and the taxpayers. The movers were directed 
to move the items. This is not a mistake on the part of the movers, 
and it deserves being investigated because it is taxpayers' money." 
A list of the items returned to the president's home are: one tea 
set, one ginger jar with base, one dresser, one lamp globe, two entrance 
rugs, two small round tables (one with marble top), one brown narrow 
table, two mirror runners, one octagon mirror, four crystal candle 
holders, one tea pot with two cups, one large Revere bowl, one soup 
tureen, two glass decanters, one crystal compote; One china plate, four
figurines, one cup and saucer, three silver wine goblets, 12 small Revere
bowls, one large brass planter, one capa de onte planter, Buttercup silver
(22 cocktail forks, eight knives, eight forks, six butter spreaders, eight
salad forks, seven tablespoons, one sugar spoon, eight teaspoons, and eight
soup spoons), 17 silver napkin rings, one lace table cloth; One casserole
dish in silver holder, one silver wire basket, two oblong silver platters,
18 silver coasters with three holders, three silver trays, one set of blue
stoneware, one set flatware, two brass lamps, one side table, one soup
tureen, three decorative apples, 41 glass serving plates, one waste basket,
one gate leg table, one chandelier, one two-drawer file cabinet, one chaise
lounge, one padded headboard with bed accessories, one brass floor lamp,
one oak desk, one bookcase, one bedside table, one quilt stand, and one
VCR. 

____________________ 

There it is as it was reported all over the state at the time. And 
what about the investigation being conducted by the state's Ethics 
Commission? From the beginning there was next to no chance that the 
Commission would find against Jack Hawkins. The Old Boy network in 
Alabama is alive and well, and the blind are not a part of it. As 
we go to press in December, the Ethics Commission has found in Hawkins' 
favor. As one person close to the case, who asked not to be identified 
said, "He may have broken the law, but not the ethics law, so 
he is exonerated."
  
This leaves only the police investigation of the Hawkins purchase 
of state-owned goods and his removal and return of still other state 
property. The District Attorney is not saying what he intends to do. 
The current grand jury is about to stand down, so he may wish to wait 
until a new one is impaneled. Maybe justice will yet be done, but the blind
of Alabama are understandably skeptical. Why should it begin 
now?  

A new President of the Institute was named on November 9, 1989. He 
is Thomas Bannister, who was the Superintendent of the Utah School 
for the Deaf and Blind. He was the only one of the five finalists 
who had any past experience at all with blindness, so (although as 
we have seen in the case of Hawkins, experience with blindness is 
not necessarily a proof of rectitude) perhaps the luck of blind people 
in Alabama has changed. One can only hope--but may be pardoned 
for doubting.  

With a united voice the blind of Alabama have called for redress. 
The governor has ignored them, and Legislators James Preuitt and Clarence 
Haynes (whose blind mother is an active Federationist) have demanded 
reform of the Institute to no avail. And where was NAC when questions 
about the quality of services to blind people were being raised and 
condemnation of the Institute's President was filling virtually every 
newspaper in the state? In bed with the establishment, of course, 
where it always wants to be. In May of 1989 Dennis Hartenstein explained 
with sanctimonious condescension to a group of blind people that NAC's 
mission is to improve agencies in the field. If accreditation were 
to be withdrawn or refused, he asked rhetorically, what incentive 
would there be for that agency to improve its services to the blind? 
To which one is driven to reply: What impetus is there now? Alabama 
has never been a good place for blind people, but its attractiveness 
has been declining during the past decade. Jack Hawkins is clearly 
the immediate cause of this sorry state of affairs, but the ultimate 
responsibility must lie at NAC's door. Whether NAC likes it or not, 
the general public understands the concept of accreditation to be 
a way for experts to indicate their approval of an agency's actions 
and policies. NAC must decide whether it would rather claim that the 
morally bankrupt activities and policies of the Hawkins administration 
are outside the purview of its standards or that it has simply been 
looking the other way in an effort (one supposes) to improve the Institute.

Both alternatives are damning, and both are probably, to one degree 
or another, true.  

We will say it once again in case we have been misunderstood. We have 
no quibble with the concept of accreditation. If it were done with 
commitment to improving the welfare of blind people, if it reflected 
society's commonly held notions of legality and ethics, if one could 
ever see a pattern that suggested blind people were flourishing and 
growing in competence through the work of accredited agencies, then 
one could embrace NAC accreditation with enthusiasm. The Alabama Institute 
for the Deaf and Blind, and its checkered history under the leadership 
of Jack Hawkins, is only the latest chapter in the NAC scandal. The 
corruption at the Alabama Institute demonstrates once again the true 
degree of NAC's commitment (or lack thereof) to quality service and 
high principles. When NAC and its agencies cozy up together and claim 
to be taking care of the blind, the blind lose every time. We will 
keep fighting for justice in Alabama, as we have so often done before. 
Through hard experience we have learned that if we who are blind do 
not fight for ourselves, no one else will do it for us.