with right wing political hacks started under the Great Leader Ronald Reagan, and has been pursued relentlessly under every California Republican governor since. Same gang behind No Child, and packing of the courts and the DOJ and every facet of government with incompetent ideologues.

Blog post a couple of links deep says:

“It is quite amazing that in a purportedly liberal state like California, the Chancellor of a major UC campus has apparently caved into political pressure from conservatives”

California liberals didn’t make this set of decisions - Republican appointees and their big money co-conspirators did.

Nothing else, just placing the blame where it belongs, on the Republican governors who appoint whackos as Regents, and the corporate pirates with the money to buy a law school and gall to dictate the chancellor (and thereby the faculty) and the idiot voters that keep electing Republican governors.

I’m surprised at you, bringiton. These guys think big, and what’s wrong with that?

Privilege, at the root, meaning “private law” …

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

except perhaps my demands that academics stand up against this sort of thing more loudly.

i know it’s an ongoing, longterm project. but i think we’re closer to the end of it than the beginning, today. from medical research to econ departments to language training to administrative appointments, the political process (that is, the right wing political concern) has infiltrated the american Academe. no one is safe, no researcher is completely free. for a little while, some schools dabbled with real academic freedom, and some interesting things resulted. but that seems to me to be ending now. in the future, universities will be like think tanks and corporate r&d houses. and we will pay a price for that- other countries still understand why academic freedom and innovation are connected, and ultimately profitable.

The closing of academia to independent voices is all of a piece with closing the borders so that the best researchers and the brightest students no longer want to come here.

So fucking stupid. Of course, the people who are doing this hope to pull the ladder up after themselves and leave normal people to fend for themselves. Surprise.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

because I don’t think we disagree on this matter either. My comment was directed at the authors in the links, who I felt had taken unfair swipes at “liberal” California for allowing this fiasco to occur. The good news, such as it is, is that the rightists have so seriously damaged the new law school that there will be no one with any standing that will take the job and that’s led to major outrage here at least on the local news and major papers.

But maybe that’s the plan, turn a UC campus into a taxpayer-supported extension of Regent.

Lambert, exactly correct, what they have in mind is higher education for the deserving elite and true believers, none needed for the service work or jail time that is everyone else’s future.