Isn’t it great that supposedly smarter than everyone else liberals, such as UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, so often jump the gun without any actual, you know, evidence?
The chancellor at University of California, Berkeley, has sent a campus-wide e-mail linking the Tucson shootings with Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigrants and the failure of the DREAM Act.
In his e-mail sent Monday, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau postulates on factors that may have motivated accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner, saying he believes it’s no coincidence that the shooting’s occurred in a state he says legislated discrimination against illegal immigrants.
He’s referring to Senate Bill 1070, which empowers police to demand proof of citizenship or legal residency from criminal suspects.
He also linked it to not passing the DREAM Act and other idiocy. But
At UC Berkeley itself, a frequent hotbed of student activism, the issue has caused little stir so far; students have yet to return from winter break, campus spokeswoman Claire Holmes said.
“This was his personal view,” Holmes said of the e-mail. “He’s been a long-standing proponent of something like a DREAM Act, so these talented individuals have a pathway to citizenship, so they are better able to make a contribution to society.”
So, it’s a personal email, that he sent campus wide. In most businesses, they would terminate a person that sent such a highly politically charged email across the network.
Oh, hey, look, massive mailings are prohibited (page 2). Faculty code of conduct restricts
4. Use of the position or powers of a faculty member to coerce the judgment or conscience of a student or to cause harm to a student for arbitrary or personal reasons. (page 6)
3. Unauthorized use of University resources or facilities on a significant scale for personal, commercial, political, or religious purposes. (page 7)
Well, I guess Robert is authorizing himself to break the rules.
Behold the POWAH of this fully armed and operational Tenure!
Yep, that was inappropriate.
I thought that the failure of the Dream act and illegal immigrants where the cause of AGW. Maybe the shooting was the result of AGW. OR maybe Bush did it.
[…] Shocker! UC Berkeley Chancellor Links Arizona Shooting To SB 1070 Isn’t it great that supposedly smarter than everyone else liberals, such as UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, so often jump the gun without any actual, you know, evidence? […]
Got that right, Mojo. Interesting, no one is asking Robert to resign, and no talk of termination.
I quite agree, Kevin. I’ve seen people terminated for less in the private sector.
Come on, David, the current TP is that it is all Sarah Palin’s fault. For someone who is supposed to be such a political lightweight, she is sure given quite a bit of power by the left, eh?
HA! Love it mojo. Tenure, MSM, and Socialism – all part of the three-headed Hydra.
This is just another reason to help California fall off the continental shelf. Holy crap. This is unbelievable. No one denies the ability of a University Prez to send out emails to help bring people back to civility, or to increase safety awareness, or to introduce new councelling, etc., but to outright lay blame on SOCIAL ISSUES?!!? And blame a segment of the population for this nutjob’s actions??
Yes, this guy needs to be released from duties for various reasons outlined above.
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS LEX LU-THOR WHEN WE NEED HIM??????
ie In the original 1978 Superman movie Lex Luther plans to split apart the San Andreas fault-line using Nuclear armaments – the resulting explosion destined to send the entire Californian coastline and its inhabitants to murky ocean depths.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Oh the hateful evil violent rhetoric. I am aghast with shame and outright indignation towards your non-civil anti-unionistic hardline conservative rantings, Trish.
I mildly shake my limp wrist in your direction.
Inept leadership of UC Berkeley by Chancellor. When UC Berkeley announced its elimination of student sports including baseball, men’s, women’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse teams and its defunding of the national-champion men’s rugby team, the chancellor sighed, “Sorry, but this was necessary!â€
But was it? Yes, the university is in dire financial straits. Yet $3 million was somehow found by Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau to pay the Bain consulting firm to uncover waste, inefficiencies in UC Berkeley (Cal), despite the fact that a prominent East Coast university was accomplishing the same thing without expensive consultants.
Essentially, the process requires collecting, analyzing information from faculty, staff. Apparently, Cal senior management believe that the faculty, staff of their world-class university lacks the cognitive ability, integrity, energy to identify millions in savings. If consultants are necessary, the reason is clear: the chancellor has lost credibility with the people who provided the information to the consultants. Chancellor Robert J Birgeneau has reigned for eight years, during which time the inefficiencies proliferated to $150 million. Even as Bain’s recommendations are implemented (‘They told me to do it’, Birgeneau), credibility, trust, problems remain.
Bain is interviewing faculty, staff, senior management and academic senate leaders to identify $150 million in inefficiencies, most of which could have been found internally. One easy-to-identify problem, for example, was wasteful procurement practices such as failing to secure bulk discounts on printers. But Birgeneau apparently has no concept of savings: even in procuring a consulting firm he failed to receive proposals from other firms.
Students, staff, faculty, California Legislators are the victims of his incompetent decisions. Now that sports teams are feeling the pinch, perhaps the California Alumni, benefactors, donors, will demand to know why Birgeneau is raking in $500,000 a year while abdicating his work responsibilities.
Let there be light.
The author, who has 35 years’ consulting experience, has taught at University of California Berkeley, where he was able to observe the culture and the way the senior management operates.
PS University of California Berkeley (Cal) ranking drops. In 2004, for example, the London-based Times Higher Education ranked Cal the 2nd leading research university in the world, just behind Harvard; in 2009 that ranking had tumbled to 39th place.
University of California, Berkeley.