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A telling tale
Sometimes real events take on the contours of moral parables. Here's one about the hazards of politically correct governance.
In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209, which forbade public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity. In 1999, California governor Gray Davis appointed San Diego Padres owner and entrepreneur John Moores to the University of California Board of Regents. And almost immediately, Moores began raising questions about whether the University of California admissions office was adhering to the law.
Moores' concern was that UC's admissions practices violated the California state constitution. He started asking questions--and when he could not get straight answers, he commissioned an independent study of UC Berkeley's admissions patterns. What he found was suggestive and shocking. In a 2004 op-ed published in Forbes, Moores argued that Berkeley was flouting California law by giving preferential treatment to black and Hispanic applicants, who were being accepted in larger numbers than white and Asian applicants with better grades and higher SATs.
More shocking still, though, was the UC Regents' reaction to their chairman's discovery. They did not thank him for exposing serious problems at the university in their fiduciary care. Nor did they take steps to further investigate matters, and to rectify problems. Instead, they distanced themselves from Moores, formally voting to censure him for publishing his findings and voicing his concerns. "Because of [Moore's article], there are students that can not walk Telegraph Avenue without being intimidated because of the nature of their ethnicity," one Regent said. The message was clear: A majority of the members of UC's board believed that it was more important not to offend anyone than to determine the facts--or obey the law.
Moores soldiered on, continuing to ask tough questions--and continuing to face stonewalling from UC administrators and fellow Board members. In November, he decided he'd had enough. In a sentence-long letter to Regent chairman Richard Blum, Moores resigned from the Board of Regents more than a year before his term was set to expire.
Official reaction was one of surprise. But as the history outlined above shows, Moores had plenty of reasons to quit. In the words of former fellow Regent Ward Connerly, John Moores is not someone "who walks away from an assignment unless he believes he is wasting his time."
In a thoughtful review of Moores' career on the Board of Regents, Connerly reflects on how the culture of academic governance encourages trustees to develop unhealthy tendencies toward passivity, conformity, and entitlement. Board members, he writes, often "seem to be rubber stamps of the administration. They are frequently more interested in the adulation that accompanies being a trustee, such as getting prime seating at football games and attending the lavish dinners sponsored by the university president, than they are about providing independent oversight of university operations."
Connerly notes that Moores did not buy into that culture--and that his efforts to be a responsible, independent-minded trustee met with resistance every step of the way. "It is my belief that John Moores became frustrated with the incessant attempts on the part of UC's faculty and administration to reinstate some form of race preferences at UC, despite the public's opposition to such practices as expressed by the passage of Proposition 209," Connerly reflects. "Were I now a Regent, I would be sorely tempted to do as John has done."
For those who care about the future of higher education and wish to see trustees take their responsibilities seriously, this is a depressing story indeed, a timely parable in which craven fiduciaries function as ideological yes men, enabling precisely the kinds of administrative behaviors they are charged with preventing, and scapegoating those who try to set things right. We should remember the tale of John Moores and the UC Regents--because unless things change, we are likely to hear variations on it again and again.
Posted by acta online at December 20, 2007 12:45 PM
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