By Steven T. Jones
While reading the Sunday New York Times, I was surprised to see the magazine’s Q&A with UC President Mark Yudof – and dismayed by the timing and glib tone that he took.
Just days after UC faculty, employees, and students took to the streets in protest of Yudof’s anti-democratic approach to making deep cuts and huge tuition hikes, here he is playing the cutesy wannabe celebrity who jokes about his lack of commitment to and qualifications for this important job.
And when given the chance to criticize Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – which would seem a natural, given that he’s been blaming state government for his own destructive decisions – he dutifully plays the good company man and says of the dangerous defunding of higher education, “This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic.”
WTF? So the head of the UC is fine with just giving up on the public university system? And apparently I’m not the only one bothered by this interview, which Sen. Leland Yee – who has rightfully been hard on the UC in recent years – and others savage in the following press release that he just sent out.