It’s been a tough year for the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. First there was the Nikole Hannah-Jones affair, and now controversy is swirling around the sketchy process the Board used in recently voting to approve a self-described “outspoken conservative” as UNC’s new Provost (NC Policy Watch, December 14th online).
One might ask: How did the UNC Board become such a dumpster fire? Well, genetics researcher Duncan Squesker believes he has the answer: 10 of the Board’s 13 members are direct descendants of either the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges.
Squesker, a Biology Professor at Duke University, obtained saliva samples from coffee mugs left on the conference table after a meeting of the Board in early December. He sent the samples to Ancestry.com, which linked 6 of the Board members to the Marx family, and 4 to the Stooges (2 to Moe, 1 to Shemp, and 1 to Larry).
“What we’ve got here is a Board of Trustees that is basically a clown car,” says Squesker. “No one should be surprised if their decision making resembles that of a mob of meerkats on crack.”
For his part, Board Chair David Boliek has vehemently denied that any Marx or Stooge blood runs through his veins, and noted, “just for the record, please be informed that I am also not related to Sally Hemings.” He proceeded to cackle “soitenly NOT, nyuk-nyuk” as he poked a reporter in both eyes with his fingers.