Napolitano has no background in the administration of higher education. As governor of Arizona, Napolitano cut $100 million from the Arizona State Universities and another $40 million from the state’s community colleges. She is expected to preside over similar cuts, as well as tuition increases, in her new post. The 26-member Board of Regents, whose members are appointed by the governor for a 12-year term, oversees the University of California’s ten campuses and five medical centers. Almost entirely from the most affluent layers of society, the regents usually have little to no background in higher education and are widely despised by students and faculty. Over the past decades, the Board of Regents has relentlessly increased fees while cutting classes and closing libraries. Meanwhile, the university system’s huge budget and large endowments have been used to pay astronomical administrative salaries, fund construction projects, and speculate in financial investments. During Yudof’s five years heading the Board of Regents, annual fees increased from $7,517 to $12,192, not including room and board, books, and other ancillary charges. In an effort to give a progressive gloss to the reactionary agenda that she will be pursuing, Napolitano is being lauded as the first woman to preside over the UC Board of Regents. What is far more significant than her gender, however, is Napolitano’s background building up the repressive apparatus of the federal government during the first term of the Obama administration. As chief of Homeland Security, Napolitano participated in unprecedented attacks on democratic rights. She enlisted the aid of Amtrak, Wal-Mart, hotel chains, major sports leagues and public transportation agencies for her “See Something, Say Something” campaign, promoting a climate of fear by encouraging people to spy on one another, reporting “suspicious activity” and “terror tips.” In speeches, Napolitano has invoked Cold-War era witch-hunting of so-called communists and sympathizers as the model for her campaign. Napolitano’s Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, or SAR, has led to the creation of profiles on tens of thousands of people held in a top-secret vault on the fourth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 19:46:59 +0000
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