In controlling the review from the top and appropriating for the Regents’ own interests a process that ought to be democratic, President Yudof displays in action the policy for which he is best known: the privatization of the great public university. Yudof’s appointments disguise as reform what is actually its opposite, crisis exploitation and a bid to solidify authority: and this is exactly how Yudof has used the very real California state budget shortfall. People outside the UC may not completely understand what we in the University mean when we complain of “privatization.” We mean not only the policy of shifting toward private funding and out-of-state students who pay more tuition, which year by year gives the California Legislature and middle-income California residents less and less reason to support the UC system. We mean a whole world of interlocking conflicts of interest, administrative greed, and erosion of democratic processes that expropriate spaces and decisions that ought to belong to all, not just the most highly-paid administrators.

Read full article [here].
by Michael Meranze and Rei Terada, The Huffington Post.

Posted: December 1st, 2011, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.