The controversial former vice-president of Bermuda College has resigned from his post at a US university following allegations of racism he made about staff, The Royal Gazette has learned.

Outspoken Dr. Donald Peters told last night how he resigned his post on Friday after publicly claiming that five faculty members at Plattsburgh State University in New York were blatantly racist.

He said both himself, as vice president of student affairs, and president Dr. Horace Judson were the only two black administrators at the college and had repeatedly come in for bigoted attacks.

And he said the final straw came last week when some members of staff would not shake their hands during a presentation at the college - which he claimed could only have been down to racism.

Dr. Peters, who courted controversy while vice president of Bermuda College until the summer of 2000, said he regretted nothing and would do the same thing all over again.

He said: “Plattsburgh is a weird place. The university is a great place and most of the people are fine, but there is a group of people bent on going right at the president. He's a black man.

“When he hired me, that was the last straw. During the last two years they have been doing everything possible to distract us from our work.

“They are brutal. I have increased enrolment of international students by 800 percent, and increased domestic enrolment. I do my work.”

Dr. Peters concluded: “But the s*** hit the fan last Wednesday.”

Dr. Peters said he actually held a press conference with a reporter in the “upstate” town because he wanted everyone to hear his complaints, saying: “I said I was ashamed to work at a university like this, and so I resigned.”

He said at the time of the press conference he had threatened to resign if no one at the college spoke out against the members of staff he named as allegedly being racist.

No one came forward, so he stepped down on Friday.

He added: “I have not yet called the international press because I'm waiting to see if I get paid or not. I would do it all again. I don't believe I have done anything wrong. The president has a lot of tolerance, but I won't take any of this crap. I have tried to do my best, but trouble follows me everywhere I go.”

Dr. Peters described his resignation as “symbolic” and said he had already been considering what to do with his career next.

He said: “I will be out for a while. I will go to another university or go home (to Dominica) and be a Prime Minister. Right now, I'm taking it easy.”

However, Dr. Peters said he would not remain quiet.

He threatened: “If I don't get money, the chancellor and the governor are coming down with me. This is racism... I'm being harassed....I know the chancellor is a lot smarter than that.”

News broke in Plattsburgh yesterday of Dr. Peters' resignation, although his accusations of racism against three faculty members became public last week.

College president Dr. Judson has refused to talk to the The Press-Republican newspaper, and last night told The Royal Gazette that he had “nothing to add” to Dr. Peters' comments.

However, Dr. Peters has not drawn a great deal of sympathy from people in the small community. An editorial comment piece in The Press-Republican after his claims were disclosed criticised Dr. Peters for naming three of his alleged attackers but being vague about the other two.

And it said that the latest controversy in his life had nothing to do with racism, but everything to do with in-house politics.

It said: “Peters' comments are too insidious to leave alone.

“Even though reaction from colleagues, students and alumni has been swift and strong in its defence of the three faculty members and its rebuke of Peters, the damage has been done. I suspect Peters made a calculated decision when he talked to a reporter.

“He offered no evidence of racism - likely because it only exists in the recesses of his troubled mind - because he knew the claim alone is tantamount to guilt, in the minds of many.”

This incident is an echo of a similar outcry during Dr. Peters' reign at Bermuda College in 1999, when he is reported to have called white colleague a racist and white supremacist.

He was given a “severe reprimand” by the college's ruling board and was forced to apologise for the claims.

Dr. Peters' also accused of sexual and racial discrimination after passing over a senior lecturer while making an appointment for a top job at the College, resulting in a $100,000 out of court settlement.

But the Plattsburgh newspaper also claimed that Dr. Peters had encountered a similar race-related controversy in another post.

It reported how he worked from late 1996 to early 1996 as vice president for student affairs at Wright State University, where he faced conflict of interest charges after he allegedly had subordinates hire two of his friends.

The matter was dropped when he agreed to resign.

Dr. Peters is later said to have referred to the school as White State University and said he had been charged because the minority president who hired him was under attack from a group of people.