Irony abounds in cases of Donovan, Greenwood

Do you want a vegetarian butcher or a Quaker arms dealer?

If that is your perfect match, you should have no problem understanding how Jim Donovan and M.R.C. Greenwood can simultaneously demand big bucks from the University of Hawaii because UH did them wrong, while they earn their big six-digit salaries for defending and proudly pushing the same university.

In other words, they want to stick up UH while they are sticking up for the university.

This week’s quagmire of contradictions was triggered by reports that Greenwood was demanding $2 million to leave UH.

Not to stay, to leave.

According to reports: "Greenwood’s attorney, Jerry Hiatt, asked for the $2 million for Greenwood to leave UH because the pressure placed on Greenwood is ‘a clear violation of her contract, which is premised on her ability to act independently and to be free of inappropriate threats.’"

On balance, keeping Greenwood is cheaper. The 69-year-old president has an official UH salary of $475,000 a year, minus a 10 percent reduction and plus a $5,000 a month housing allowance because she doesn’t live in the state-supplied Manoa presidential mansion.

Greenwood’s offer to resign for $2 million, which was later pulled back, was contained in her attorney’s letter noting that she "regrettably concluded that she has not been given the ability to function independently, as is required of the office of the president of UH, and she has been severely defamed."

Apparently when Greenwood went to Gov. Neil Abercrombie asking what she should do, Abercrombie said the Legislature wanted Donovan kept on and if she really ticked off enough legislators, she was likely to be in the middle of a Senate investigation.

Abercrombie’s assessment wasn’t so much meddlesome as accurate and Sen. Donna Mercado Kim’s investigation is supposed to conclude next week.

Back in August, Donovan, the UH athletic director, was put on administrative leave after helping to supervise a plan for a fundraising concert with Stevie Wonder.

The UH wired off $200,000 to secure the concert and it turns out the money went to a pair now charged with faking the whole thing.

Donovan was exonerated of any criminal wrong-doing but, after he threatened to sue, was given a new $200,000-plus-a-year job working on university communications.

Donovan’s attorney, David Simons, claimed that the university’s "public suspension of Mr. Donovan [for the Stevie Wonder concert incident] defamed him and ruined his reputation," adding that Donovan was made a "scapegoat for what was a systemic problem."

So, for someone who thinks the UH "ruined his reputation," what better job to give him than getting everyone to think good thoughts about UH?

Tom Apple, the new UH-Manoa chancellor, said Donovan was now "director of external affairs and community relations." Donovan will work on getting the university’s brand message to students of "Find Your Passion," and promote the idea that UH-Manoa is a place that conducts "Research that Matters," Apple said.

It is worth noting in all this that back in 2009, when Greenwood was hired, University of California at Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef looked at Greenwood’s rise from UC Davis administrator to UC Santa Cruz chancellor to the systemwide provost’s office, and said, "She understands how university systems work."

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.