Chair: St. Xavier High School won't remove Vivek Ramaswamy from board of trustees

A Jesuit-run private high school in the Cincinnati region won't remove Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy from its board of trustees, the board's chairman said Wednesday.

Ramaswamy's controversial comments on the campaign trail have prompted some St. Xavier High School alumni to call for the school to oust Ramaswamy from its 25-member board of trustees.

"The board acknowledges the sincerity and honest intentions of those urging Mr. Ramaswamy’s removal from our board of trustees," St. Xavier High School Board of Trustees Chairman Nick Vehr said in a statement sent to The Enquirer on Wednesday afternoon. "However, we have concluded that any action we initiate, beyond having already agreed to his sabbatical, could be interpreted as participating in or intervening in a political campaign. Therefore, we will not, and have no plans to, take any action regarding Mr. Ramaswamy’s status as a member of the board of trustees on sabbatical."

Ramaswamy graduated from St. Xavier in 2003 as valedictorian. While he remains listed as a member of the St. Xavier High School's Board of Trustees, Ramaswamy has been on sabbatical from the board and has not participated in any board activities since launching his campaign, according to Vehr, a 1977 St. Xavier graduate.

Tim Mulvey, a 2001 St. Xavier High School graduate who worked on Capitol Hill, thinks his alma mater in suburban Cincinnati should cut ties with Ramaswamy.

"The real question is for St. X: Will they jeopardize their legacy by allowing such a dangerous demagogue to remain on their board of trustees?" Mulvey wrote in a letter to the editor published Dec. 23 in The Enquirer. "No one in the school’s history has posed a greater threat to the so-called 'Long Blue Line.' It’s decision time on North Bend Road."

Ramaswamy's comments in debates and a town hall that the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol appeared to be an "inside job" crossed a line for Mulvey, he told The Enquirer on Tuesday. Mulvey worked as the communications director for the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

Ramaswamy has voiced support for the conspiracy theory that federal law enforcement agents helped instigate the storming of the Capitol. There is no evidence to support this claim.

"It’s been debunked over and over again," Mulvey said. "Those sorts of comments are dangerous. They are the sort of misinformation that encourages distrust in our election system and perpetuates the notion that the 2020 election was stolen, and a host of other really damaging, potentially violent inciting lies that are exactly what led to the violence of Jan. 6 in the first place."

When asked by The Enquirer what the St. Xavier High School Board of Trustees has heard from the public regarding Ramaswamy, Vehr said they've heard from alumni on both sides.

"We’re getting mixed feedback," Vehr said. "Lots of people are proud that a graduate of St. X High School is running for president of the United States, and lots of people feel challenged by some of the positions that the candidate has taken."

High school officials have said very little about their alumnus-turned-presidential candidate. The school denied any interviews with teachers for a profile The Enquirer did of Ramaswamy in October, citing fear of losing the school’s nonprofit status.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Why St. Xavier High School won't remove Ramaswamy from its board