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Lt. Gen. Frank Wiercinski is not qualified to serve as president of the University of Hawaii. At least not yet.

He does not meet the minimum qualifications of the Board of Regents or the Executive Committee of the Manoa Faculty Senate.

He does not have a doctorate degree from a respected institution of higher learning. He would not receive tenure at Manoa, nor does he have “five years or more” of successful leadership in higher education.

This is disturbing: as president he would rule on every tenure and promotion application in the system.

Perhaps he could be a candidate one day: he could obtain a doctorate in Management (possibly from Shidler College of Business), seek a professorship and work his way up the leadership ladder in the university.

He is only 57 years old.

Moreover, as evident from his May 6 presentation, he does not seem to understand and meet other key job requirements.

The President has a duty to “advance the university’s strategic commitment to Native Hawaiians, other indigenous persons [including Pacific Islanders] and under-represented people.”

According to the Board of Regents, that duty includes making Manoa “a model indigenous-serving institution, to include Malama aina and sustainability.”

Wiercinski was asked directly about Malama aina — “caring for the land.”

He responded by stating that the army has an outstanding record when it comes to endangered plants and species.

In fact, in a September 2013 article in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald he was quoted as saying: “I don’t think anybody does it better than us, when it comes to protecting the environment and being cognizant of and protective of cultural sites.”

He failed to touch upon the environmental failures of the military: the clean up Kahoolawe, as promised, and the failure to be fully be forthcoming about the cleanup of depleted uranium shells at Pohakuloa, Makua and Schofield Barracks.

Wiercinski was also asked about “Hawaiian values.” After all, the military was responsible for, inter alia, the wrongful overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the unconstitutional imposition of martial law during World War II, the controversial use of “ceded lands” and the failure to address the effects of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands.

Wiercinski seemed to lack the trust of the Hawaiians present.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower became the president of Columbia University after serving as commander of all allied forces in Europe during World War II. By most accounts, his tenure as university president was a “disaster.”

The military culture and the world of academia are vastly different. In one, orders come down from the top, and orders are obeyed — “or people die.”

A university is based on faculty governance, consensus building, academic freedom and a shared dedication to learning, teaching, and research and community service.

This is a public university. The president of the university is the intellectual leader and face of the state to the rest of the world. Wiercinski should not be president.

About the authors: Williamson Chang is a professor of Law and member of the Faculty Senate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Professor Chang has been teaching at the University of Hawaii School of Law for 37 years. He specializes in water rights, Native Hawaiian rights, the legal history of Hawaii and conflict of laws.

Sommerset Wong is a third-year student at the Richardson School of Law and is a recipient of the John Edmunds award for civility in litigation.

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