By Lakesha Harrison –
By Lakesha Harrison –For weeks now, the Chicago Tribune has detailed the well established and entrenched practice of circumventing the normal admissions process for the sons and daughters of the wealthy and powerful.
When initially asked about the emerging scandal, which is now being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department, Katehi refused to speak with the press. After an article on her possible involvement was published by the Sacramento Bee, she attempted to clear the air by claiming that she had no knowledge of the practice and blamed those at a “higher level.”
Enterprising reporters, however, soon discovered through a search of publicly available documents that Category I was managed both by those above Dr. Katehi and by those who reported directly to her including Keith Marshall, associate provost for enrollment.
More documents subsequently revealed that Katehi was also in the loop on as many as 50 e-mails regarding many underachieving students. In fact, Katehi even forwarded information to her subordinates to review.
Despite the fact that these Category I cases involved top UIUC officials, lawmakers, and other individuals of note, Katehi maintains that she had no knowledge of what was happening.
She further says that she never once suspected that the level of interference and involvement by her superiors and Illinois government officials was in any way unusual.
There are only two conclusions that can be inferred from Katehi’s denials: either Dr. Katehi was complicit in this corruption and has chosen to remain silent for purposes of self-preservation, or she is a doe-eyed fool.
In either case, she is unfit to be a chancellor of the University of California.
This is because, as a public university system, the University of California exists to “serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits through transmitting advanced knowledge, discovering new knowledge, and functioning as an active working repository of organized knowledge.”
In other words, the University of California exists broadly to help the people of California secure those “unalienable Rights” of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That Katehi comes out of an institutional culture where this very principle was subverted as a course of daily business and is now being summarily rewarded by the UC regents with an extraordinarily generous pay package should be a cause for concern to anyone dedicated to the proposition of liberty and justice for all.
Throughout the federal bailout of banks associated with today’s financial crisis and throughout California’s state budget crisis, there has been a growing sense that the public institutions created to serve We the People have now been redirected to cater to the rich and politically connected
The UC regents’ decision to raise student fees by another 9%, while doling out an exorbitant pay package to Katehi in the middle of the state budget crisis is just the latest example of this.
That is why arguments to the effect that California is too big to fail are now being advanced in favor of a federal rescue. What proponents of a California bailout are effectively saying is that citizens of the Golden State deserve a golden parachute too, not just CEOs, UC chancellors, and other high-ranking members of the leisure class.
AFSCME local 3299 represents 17,000 workers at the University of California. Our union represents workers from every UC facility in the state, including the ten campuses, five medical centers, agricultural and marine research stations, and all other facilities that employ UC workers. Lakesha Harrison is president of AFSCME local 3299.
My dad was an AFLCIO rep in the 60’s to 70’s, I “grew up” union. Currently unions have lost all credibility with me. I can not believe their attitude in this recession! Doesn’t matter whether it’s Firefighters’, Teachers or the biggest fiasco-BART. The union collective needs to get a grip. I now dismiss any commentary from a union or union rep as being self-serving drivel.
Thanks Dee for helping to perpetuate the perception that criticism of employee contracts is a thinly veiled guise for attacking workers.
My grandmother and mother went to the University of Illinois, both with children during attendance. They both got in on the merits of their scores.
I find it personally offensive that UC chose to stick our local beloved campus with someone who was in charge of the office and program that did what Dee and the Illinois newspapers have outlined. Making matters worse, this new administrator claims to have been ignorant of what her office was doing. Even worse still, UC gave her an enormous raise over her predecessor.
So we gave her a huge sum of money to hire someone who claims that she did not know that her office staff were implementing an admissions program that was so entrenched in her office that there was even a formal name for it?
Please, give me a break.
The entire matter is disappointing.
I think that the US and Illinios investigators will ransack those computers and document systems.
It is all coming out, and you are going to see a lot more before this is over. What the newspapers have to date is only the tip ….
Unfortunately, our local UCD and UC administrators have shot a blank again, after the other two I mentioned the other day.
Harrison writes: [quote] the Chicago Tribune has detailed the well established and entrenched practice of circumventing the normal admissions process for the sons and daughters of the wealthy and powerful. … Katehi even forwarded information to her subordinates to review. [/quote] Perhaps you did not see this line in the Chicago Tribune ([url]http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-college-clout-ripples-19-jun19,0,487757.story[/url]) story: “Records do not suggest that (Kathei) overruled any admissions decision, pushed for a subpar applicant or played a key role in the shadow system.”
If Katehi did not overrule any admissions decision, if she did not push for any subpar applicant, and if she did not play a key role in the shadow system, it seems to me that Harrison’s conclusion that Katehi “is unfit to be a chancellor of the University of California” is misguided. [quote] (Katehi) is now being summarily rewarded by the UC regents with an extraordinarily generous pay package should be a cause for concern to anyone dedicated to the proposition of liberty and justice for all.[/quote]If Dr. Katehi is “unfit to serve,” she would be unfit whether her pay package was meager or “extraordinarily generous.” Thus, attacking her for this in the context of the [i]Clout Goes to College[/i] story is a non-sequitir and one which makes me wonder if Harrison’s motives in launching this attack against Katehi is not part of a broader union campaign pitting lesser-paid UC employees that her union represents against higher-paid administrators* like Katehi?
If so, it’s terribly unfair of AFSCME to single out Dr. Katehi in the manner this column does. For the good of UC Davis as an institution, the most important institution in all of Davis, it’s important that the new chancellor gets off to a good start and ultimately is a success.
*No one would accuse me of defending high pay packages for UC executives. My longheld view is that the UC has lost sight of its mission of educating our elite (top 12%) graduates at a very low cost. Before about 1993, in real dollars, a UC education was very cheap. In the last 15-20 years, it has become unbelievably unaffordable for a lot of middle income families, in large part due to high salaries, high benefits and increasing numbers of employees who don’t teach undergraduates. I think UCD in that period has tripled the high level staff.
“it’s important that the new chancellor gets off to a good start and ultimately is a success. “
It’s far more important that we have a chancellor that we can trust.
It looks like the UC administration is seeing what it wants to see.
“If Katehi did not overrule any admissions decision, if she did not push for any subpar applicant, and if she did not play a key role in the shadow system, it seems to me that Harrison’s conclusion that Katehi “is unfit to be a chancellor of the University of California” is misguided.”
Excuse me Rich, but if Katehi knew what was going on, but chose to look the other way, then she is complicit in the scandal. She is tacitly supporting the illegal practice if she knows it is going on, but chooses to do nothing. And as Lakiesha points out, not to know would make Katehi a fool. I don’t believe for one second Katehi didn’t know – she is far too intelligent to be that stupid. If she didn’t know, then she is incompetent for not checking on email content, especially before forwarding it.
[quote]Excuse me Rich, but if Katehi knew what was going on, but chose to look the other way, then she is [u]complicit[/u] in the scandal.[/quote]I understand your point. I just think that [i]complicit[/i] is far too harsh an adjective. I don’t claim to know what really happened (from her desk). However, I would guess that when she got to Illinois from Purdue, the Clout business was already established practice at the Champagne-Urbana campus and that, as the Tribune story said explicitly, Katehi did not overrule any admissions decision, push for a subpar applicant or play a key role in the shadow system. In other words, this ongoing practice, while foul, was not her responsibility.
I guess if you want a perfect human being without any failings, you can flog Katehi for not exposing this enterprise that preceded her and that was outside of her job description, once she learned of it. However, my presumption is that no one is perfect. That [i]all* of us[/i] have some human failings and that if you dig deep enough in an effort to find faults in people, including faults in judgment, you will find them. I prefer to give her a break and hope she will use all of her many good qualities to do a good job at UC Davis. I would like to judge her on her performance here.
*This is off-point, but the Sanford situation in South Carolina reminds me of it. I don’t think Gov. Sanford deserves especial public condemnation for cheating on his wife and all the lies which surrounded his sordid affair. I think Gov. Sanford deserves rebuke for being the typical right-wing religious a-hole who has spent years playing the “holier than thou” card. When he was in Congress, for example, he was especially harsh in condemning President Clinton’s morals for the Monica Lewinsky situation. When he voted to impeach Clinton, Sanford specifically mentioned how it was men like Clinton who were destroying traditional family life. Sanford, even after he began his tawdry tryst with the mysterious Maria, signed onto the “Defense of Marriage Act,” which is supposed to prohibit gays from getting married and therefore make it safe for straight people to stay married. Gov. Sanford, like so many who throw stones at the foibles of other people and condemn them for their transgressions, protested too much, methinks (to paraphrase Queen Gertrude in Hamlet).
Is it just me, or does just seeing the name AFSCME cause other people to want to vomit?
Rifkin: “I guess if you want a perfect human being without any failings, you can flog Katehi for not exposing this enterprise that preceded her and that was outside of her job description, once she learned of it.”
I am asking for nothing more than integrity on the job, and at $400,000 I expect nothing less. Your standards for public officials is far too low, Rich.
Think of it this way. When a witness goes into the courtroom, they are asked to tell the truth, THE WHOLE TRUTH, and nothing but the truth. Omission is as much a lie as a abject falsehood. On top of that, Katehi’s claim of not being aware of the dual system wrings hollow. Either she knew, and chose to look the other way, or didn’t know, in which case she is as incompetent as hell if she failed to investigate emails and just “passed them along”.
I expect far better of anyone making the kind of salary she is making. I’ll go one step farther – I expect far better of any employee, no matter what they are making. People who don’t expect better, won’t get better! Ethical expectations need to be RAISED, not lowered, these days. GET REAL!
Get Real — I don’t have any more to say on this. Just wanted to let you know I read your reply and respect your approach, though we disagree, here.