Florida A&amp - M President Resigns - NYTimes.com MIAMI - The president of Florida A&M University, James H. Ammons, resigned on Wednesday, eight months after a member of the university's celebrated marching band collapsed and died after a hazing ritual. Dr. Ammons, who served five years as president, resigned on the same day that the parents of Robert Champion, the drum major who died Nov. 19 after being beaten, filed a lawsuit in Orlando. The lawsuit asserts that university administrators failed to do enough to end student hazing, a longstanding ritual among university band members that involved beatings and verbal abuse. Offering an example of what it called university wrongdoing, the lawsuit states that university leaders, including the band director, failed to take action after the dean of students recommended a long-term suspension of the band three days before Mr. Champion died. The recommendation was made after a string of hazing-related episodes surfaced before the Florida Classic football game in Orlando, a showcase for the Marching 100, as the band is called. The university is best known for its innovative band, which numbers 375 and serves as a centerpiece for fund-raising and recruiting. Administrators were not willing to suspend the band for fear it would hurt the university's budget, the lawsuit asserts. The university's board of trustees, the company that owns the bus on which the hazing took place and the bus driver are named in the lawsuit. "FAMU refused to suspend the FAMU band prior to the Florida Classic, as suggested by Dean Kirby, due to the public notoriety and financial gain of participating in events during the three-day Florida Classic Weekend," the lawsuit said. After Mr. Champion's death, the band was suspended indefinitely. Dr. Ammons had been under considerable pressure for months to step down. On June 7, the university's board of trustees handed him a no-confidence vote. In December, a month after Mr. Champion's death, Gov. Rick Scott asked the board to suspend Dr. Ammons, a request that was rebuffed. In his resignation letter to Solomon Badger, the chairman of the board, Dr. Ammons said that he had accomplished what the board asked of him recently: He moved quickly to put together a "competent team of key administrators" to deal with the challenges the university faces in the wake of the scandal. "When the next president experiences her or his transition in, she or he will very likely find additional challenges, albeit not nearly to the extent of which I faced at the outset, or those I am facing now," Dr. Ammons wrote. Since Mr. Champion's death, Florida A&M, the state's only historically black public university, has faced considerable criticism. A number of serious hazings have come to light. The university's band finances are being investigated for irregularities by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. And investigators found that some band members were not university students. But it was Mr. Champion's death that upended the university, an institution known for having graduated the state's top black professionals and politicians. After months of investigation, 11 band members, including three fellow drum majors, were charged in May with felony hazing; two others face misdemeanor charges. Mr. Champion died after being beaten and kicked as he made his way to the back of a chartered bus in Orlando in a ritual called "Crossing Bus C," the lawsuit states. He also sat in the so-called hot seat at the back of the bus, where he was struck and deprived of oxygen for brief moments, the lawsuit said. Orange County investigators say that Mr. Champion volunteered for the ritual - as do many members - believing he needed to earn respect. His parents have said they do not believe their son would have agreed to the ritual.