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Jun 202012
Students and faculty have staged protests in opposition to UVA President Teresa Sullivan's ouster. (Washington Post photo)
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CULTURE CLASH AT UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA PORTENDS FUTURE BATTLES AT AMERICAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
(Inside Higher-Ed)
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The normally bucolic tranquility of the University of Virginia campus was shattered this week by a shocking turn of events that led to the immediate firing of the institution’s popular president. Students, faculty and alumni engaged in protests after Teresa Sullivan was sacked by the university’s Board of Visitors less than two years into her term at the helm of UVA. Supported by most major groups representing the university, no specific reason other than platitudes about ““bold and proactive leadership” was given by the board for their decision to demand Sullivan’s resignation in such a hasty fashion. But obvious clues point to clashes of style and vision between a president dedicated to protecting students and faculty from mounting budget cuts and a board rife with corporate leaders who supported the cuts imposed by Virginia’s conservative legislature and demanded “dramatic change” at the university focused mainly on cutting programs and reducing the power of faculty. UVA’s business school, supported by top corporate donors, is said to have been behind the board’s austerity plan for the school and the ultimate ouster of Sullivan. The conflict on display in Charlottesville is likely to be repeated elsewhere as shrinking state budgets and an increasingly corporate culture put the well-being of top level institutions at risk.
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UN TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: GIVE US LEGAL JUSTIFICATION FOR U.S. DRONE ATTACKS
(Global Post)
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The policy of using weaponized aerial drones to conduct lethal strikes on suspected “terrorist” targets across the Middle East and southeast Asia, started by President Bush but significantly advanced under the Obama administration, has long been rife with controversy and growing local protest from communities and sovereign nations subject to these bombardments. Now a leading investigator for the United Nations’ Human Rights Council is preparing to launch a probe into whether U.S. drone strikes violate international law and constitute mass human rights abuses unless the president and his administration can “clarify the procedures in place” to international treatises and ensure the rights of civilians at risk of becoming collateral damage are protected. The refusal from the U.S. government to stop the use of drones has led to a rapid erosion of support for America and its policies around the globe, and is complicating thew relationship between the Obama administration and top ally Pakistan, with that country’s ambassador to the UN calling on the body to halt the “indiscriminate attacks” on “thousands of innocent people.”
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HOW BAD IS THE ECONOMY THESE DAYS? ONLY THE TOP TWO-PERCENT OF AMERICA’S WEALTHIEST PEOPLE CAN AFFORD NECKLACES MADE FROM CRUSHED ROMAN ARTIFACTS…
(Bloomberg)
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Experts are sounding an alarm over a new subset of the economy that is beginning to struggle as the nation’s economic engine fails to sustain a recovery. Much has been made of the “99 percent,” the vast majority of Americans championed by the Occupy Wall Street movement and whose fading prosperity is used as an example of government policies favoring the rich. But the real strain on the American economy may come from “Henry.” It’s a segment of upper-middle class to minimally wealthy people — many of them small business owners — who are classified as a “High Earner Not Rich Yet.” These are individuals that earn between $100,000 and $250,000 per year and were long attached to the explosive growth in wealth and income seen among the rich and “super-rich” — millionaires and billionaires that even managed to weather the post-recessionary storm of the last four years with their fortunes intact. But as ordinary Americans again cut back their spending and prosperity fails to trickle down to the customers of businesses they own or operate, the “Henry” is facing a similar problem of a growing wealth gap with the top one percent of earners. While a “Henry” is forced to cut back on such purchases as a $5,000 designer dress, high-end retailers watch as luxury items like $20,000 jewelry made from Roman ruins fly off their shelves.
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RAMPANT GUN VIOLENCE MAKES STREETS OF CHICAGO MORE DANGEROUS THAN AFGHANISTAN.
(Huffington Post)
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The nation’s murder rate, dropping for more than a decade, may be beginning to rise again as unchecked gun violence and budget cuts to police forces bring fear back to the streets of urban America. Nowhere is this trend more visceral or deadly than Chicago, where a murder rampage since 2001 has led to more deaths by homicide in the city than American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan. This year alone has seen 228 deaths in Chicago compared to 144 U.S. military personnel killed in Afghanistan. The spiraling crime rate has led to aggressive measures taken to protect some of the city’s more high-profile events, including over 100 police officers used to maintain a security perimeter around the wedding of White House advisor Valerie Jarrett’s daughter, attended by President Obama and his family. City and police officials are quick to blame “fracturing street gangs” for the consistently high number of homicides. Bu community activists say gang-related violence is relatively low, and that cops are falling back on racial stereotypes in assigning blame to the unstoppable wave of murders.
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Hot on the heels of the UVA sroty comes word that the Board at Purdue University will vote to appoint Mitch Daniels (currently governor of Indiana) as the next president at Purdue. Mitch has spent his 8 years as governor acting as if publicly-supported higher education is a waste of time and money. And now he’s going to be president of one of the outstanding public universities in at least two areas (engineering and agriculture). We do live in interesting times, damn it.
If one of the aims of those Board members favoring more rapid change was to improve the faculty by attracting more stars, this decision seems likely to have the opposite effect of prompting the best faculty to look for jobs elsewhere. — Sandy Thatcher
Another power grab by the corporate elite and the one percent. Huge corporations are the donors behind this. Good luck to those students and faculty in their fight against such corporate tyranny.
This sort of thing is going to become more and more typical as more right-wing loonies are appointed to the Board of Governors of universities across the United States. Learning should NOT be a commodity where the students are pushed through as quickly as possible to become good little corporate drones; college should be a place where critical thinking, knowledge, and skills at research are taught.
Unfortunately, due to massive and overwhelming ignorance in the United States and among most Americans, this sad trend isn’t likely to end anytime soon.