Deborah Stanley

The State University of New York Board of Trustees has appointed SUNY Oswego President Deborah Stanley as interim chancellor.

Stanley will replace current Chancellor Jim Malatras who has submitted his resignation. Her term begins January 15, 2022.

Calls for Malatras’ resignation began following the release of transcripts from the investigation into sexual harassment allegations against former Governor Andrew Cuomo. The documents show text messages from Malatras mocking one of Cuomo’s accusers, Lindsey Boylan, in 2019.

Stanley brings nearly 45 years of campus leadership to SUNY, having spent 25 of those as President of the State University of New York at Oswego. She earned her baccalaureate degree with honors and juris doctor degree from Syracuse University.

The SUNY Board of Trustees will begin a search for a permanent Chancellor in January 2022.

Jim Malatras

State University of New York Chancellor Jim Malatras has told reporters he has no plans to resign after investigations have cast more light on the role he played in Governor Andrew Cuomo‘s inner circle.

According to a Spectrum New Report, transcripts and supporting documentation released by Attorney General Letitia James included an email from Malatras in which he was critical of Lindsey Boylan, a staffer who would later accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment. Boylan at the time was knocking the Cuomo administration for having a toxic work environment.

In an text message chain with other Cuomo aides, Malatras suggests releasing some of Boylan’s “cray emails” and used a swear word.

Boylan was one of 11 women included in a report released in August by the attorney general’s office detailing allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct by Cuomo, who resigned August 24.

Cuomo aides last year after Boylan’s initial harassment claims leaked the details of her departure from the administration to the media, including complaints by those who worked in Boylan’s office.

Malatras has been a key advisor to Cuomo over the years, serving as the director of state operations and was later appointed to the SUNY chancellorship in 2020 as the pandemic was bringing mounting challenges to the state university system.

A state Assembly report released last month following a lengthy investigation provided more details on how Cuomo used state resources to help him write a book about the pandemic, which was part of a $5.1 million contract. Malatras had helped Cuomo with the book, and Malatras has said he volunteered his time to help with it.

But other aides in the governor’s office have refuted claims made by Cuomo’s team they had volunteered their time to work on the book, calling it a central focus of the governor’s office at the time.

Malatras also helped with the production of a report in July 2020 seeking to refute allegations of how nursing home residents died during the pandemic and whether a hospital discharge order was at fault. How the state reported fatalities of residents is being investigated by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his presentation of the State Budget on Jan. 19, 2021 (Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)

ALBANY – Democrats in the state Assembly and Senate have finalized a deal to strip Gov. Andrew Cuomo of his coronavirus emergency powers.

The state legislature first delegated the emergency powers to the governor in March 2020 during the start of the pandemic. The authority gave Cuomo the ability to issue executive orders with the force of law on any issue relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, including altering specific regulations for businesses across the state, requiring mask-wearing and social distancing, and limiting or shutting down parts of the economy. Since then, Cuomo has used the authority to issue nearly 100 executive orders and has also issued more than 500 directives, modifications or suspensions of state regulations.

Throughout the time he’s held the powers, the Legislature still could have overturned individual orders by the governor with a majority vote, but that never occurred. But now that the governor is the focus of a federal criminal investigation in the state’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic, along with the more recent allegations of sexual harassment, the democratic controlled Assembly and Senate are both ready to end Cuomo’s executive authority.

The agreement will prohibit the governor from unilaterally issuing new executive orders related to the pandemic without legislative review. But he will retain the ability to tweak or renew existing orders.

A vote on the measure is expected Friday.

Meanwhile, the number of lawmakers calling for Cuomo to resign immediately increased this week after a third woman came forward to allege the governor physically harassed her.

The intensifying calls for his resignation follow unsettling allegations from three women — former aides Lindsey Boylan and Charlotte Bennett, and Anna Ruch, who did not work for Cuomo but told the New York Times that Cuomo grabbed her and attempted to kiss her at a wedding in September 2019.

The politicians breaking ranks with Cuomo include a batch of progressive Democrats in the Legislature — as well as a Democratic member of Congress from Long Island, Congresswoman Kathleen Rice.

Cuomo has said he will defer further comment on the harassment allegations until after the investigation against him is completed.