Different Day, Same Shit.

The following comes courtesy of Lane Crothers, a.k.a Politicalprof, a professor of politics and government at Illinois State University, in Normal, IL.:

I remember when the lottery for higher education passed in SC. Every student that went to college received a voucher for x amount of dollars. So what do you think happened to the cost of higher education in SC. The tuition increased by the same amount as the voucher.

This is a valid concern. There is no doubt that many universities have taken the increased availability of student loans and/or support programs from state and local governments and used them to raise their tuitions to meet the monies available. Thus, rather than economize, they saw opportunities to build “up charges” into their pricing, and get “extra” money (beyond the money cut by the state) into their budgets.

On the other hand, as the article I linked to noted, this was more common at major research universities than it was at “mid-level” universities like mine. At places like mine, tax replacement more or less accounts for current tuition rates.

Moreover, it seems to me that our understandable focus on tuition has left us incapable of seeing the real complexity of running a campus. Because of budget cuts in the 1980s and 1990s, for example, most campuses have huge backlogs of what we call “deferred maintenance”: the operating costs required to maintain, repair and replace aging buildings and infrastructure. When the states started chopping funding (again) in the 2000s, lots of campuses (like mine) were filled with buildings where plumbing, electric systems, roofs and other components were deteriorating quickly. So, yeah: lots of campuses took “extra” money and used it on buildings. Indeed, in some cases they used it to fix roofs; in others, they built climbing walls in elaborate student rec centers.

I get that people feel squeezed 87 ways to Tuesday. I was unspeakably blessed to have gotten through higher ed when I did, and I am — frankly — worried at how even someone with the advantages I have will pay for college for my children when they get there … many, many years from now. I do really, sincerely, get it.

The plain truth is that society no longer considers higher education a public good that the public should subsidize through taxes. Rather, society considers college a private good individuals should pay for on their own. This transition is occurring at a time when the existing architecture of higher education — lots of physical campuses spread around states — is aging, but no credible alternative has emerged to replace it. (Online just has too many problems to work for most people.)

So this generation is getting squeezed on both ends: they have to pay to maintain the old system even as the public bails out. It’s not pretty.

Sometimes I get sad.

“Why is it when a white person says he is proud to be white he’s shunned as a racist?”

The above quoted comes courtesy of a young chap by the name of Patrick Sharp. Sharp is not just an ordinary freshman student at Georgia State University - he's also the founder of the university's new White Student Union.

Sharp's idea isn't a new one. In fact, he's following in the footsteps of another chap, Matthew Heimbach, who also founded a white student union at Towson University not too long ago. In Sharp's own words:

"All we want to do is celebrate white identity. This is about being in touch with who you are as a white person and being proud of that."

To the average person, this sounds almost word-for-word like the modus operandi of any other ethnic student union. After all, why shouldn't there be a white student union when blacks, Hispanics and other groups have theirs? Surely a Eurocentric group would make a fine addition to the 300 or so existing student unions at GSU, right?

There are plenty of points yours truly will attempt to make as to why the idea of a "White Student Union" seems utterly unnecessary on one end and dangerous on the other:

1. From a civil rights perspective, a white student union offers little to no utility. In the words of historian and student activism advocate Angus Johnston: "When someone asks me this, my response is always pretty much the same: 'Do you actually want to have a White Student Union on campus? Would you be active in a WSU there was one? Is there stuff you’d like to be doing that the absence of a WSU is keeping you from doing?' So far, nobody has ever answered any of these questions with a yes."
   
2. The idea of a white student union exists for the same reason that the concept of "anti-white" exists - both come as a pushback against continued efforts by black Americans to call onto account genuine racist acts and behaviors conducted on a daily basis. For white Americans besieged by constant accusations of being racist towards black Americans, the opportunity to turn the tables by embracing the very sort of "victimhood" they often accuse other minorities of seems all too attractive. With this in mind, white student unions seem like an elaborate sort of "take that" against other groups.
   
3. Those interested in forming and participating in white student unions ignore the reason why student unions for black Americans, women and other minority groups came into being in the first place: these groups were often shut out of mainstream organizations and, if they had the opportunity to be accepted, marginalized within them. This was especially true from the end-days of Reconstruction to the eventual dis-assembly of Jim Crow's more pernicious forms of discrimination.
   
4. The very concept of "white pride" inevitably circles back towards the idea of white supremacy and its embrace of whites, at the active detriment of other minority groups. Whereas "black pride" does not explicitly exclude whites and other ethnic and national groups, "white pride" often goes out of its way to exclude blacks and other minorities. Some of the more violent white supremacist groups are more hands-on about doing just that.

By far and large, "white pride" and white supremacist groups spawn as the result of some existential crisis to the core demographic's being. For instance, the specter of economic uncertainty and the ominous threat of immigrant labor drinking the last of an already near-empty employment milkshake is what brought the Golden Dawn to the forefront. In the U.S., most white supremacist groups get their genesis from the ever-present fear of losing their "rightful" place in American society, either through demographics, advances in minority civil rights or a noticeable shift in political power that may seem to benefit minority groups, such as Barack Obama's electoral ascendancy to the Oval Office.

The Towson group's genesis largely has to do with the following:

The frequent robberies, sexual assaults, and acts of vandalism at Towson University are not often reported in the local media. For those who are not Towson students it seems hard to fathom that every single day black predators prey upon the majority white Towson University student body. White Southern men have long been called to defend their communities when law enforcement and the State seem unwilling to protect our people.

The virtue of white Christian womanhood is under attack at Towson University by degenerate criminals seeking to rob our women of their God given innocence. Through armed thuggery the money of law abiding Towson students that is earned by the sweat of their brow is stolen and their lives threatened for simply walking down the street.

If you thought you stumbled onto a Stormfront posting, you're not alone*. The prospect of "white Christian womanhood" being irreparably sullied by ravenous hordes of mindless black bucks has always been a klaxon call for white supremacists to rally in the defense of racial purity. In this instance, the klaxon is cloaked in a call for better campus security.

And that's what makes these and other similar groups so dangerous. The impulse to enforce and maintain racial purity is what often leads to actual attacks on minority groups. It's no wonder that the Towson White Student Union's night patrols take on the spirit of the nighttime rides conducted by the Ku Klux Klan.

Of course, that's not the stated aim of either university's white student unions. But the attitudes, language and underlying motivations are a stone's throw away from those shared by their more upfront brethren.

*That blog is a classic grab-bag of stupid. For instance, take this post that "honors" Mary Phagan. The author conveniently overlooks Leo Frank's innocence and instead praises his lynchers for "(resisting) outside agitators and insidious internal influences to get justice for Mary Phagan." Sickening.

"UAB is a national and world leader in many fields," St. John wrote. "The hospital and medical school are points of pride for everyone in our state. But in the last 10 years UAB has faced increasing challenges. In health research funding, UAB's national ranking has declined significantly over the last 10 years. The cancer and cardiology programs are no longer nationally ranked. Changes in health care funding will require intense focus and leadership to maintain the excellence we expect from UAB. I would hope that everyone who cares about UAB and the people it serves will encourage UAB to make these matters of crucial importance to its students and the state of Alabama its highest priority."

The above is University of Alabama System trustee Finis St. John telling the University of Alabama at Birmingham to stay in its lane. Nevermind that UAB wants its own on-campus stadium to expand and further support the Blazers football team. Or that UAB is financially well-positioned to fund its construction. Or the fact that Birmingham mayor William Bell supports the effort, as do the alumni, students and prominent business figures. No, UAB has its position to play, and the folks in Tuscaloosa will be damned if they left one of their offshoots do anything to take shine off the Crimson Tide football program.

This is about the egos lurking within the main Tuscaloosa campus wanting to be the end all/be all when it comes to college football. It's a huge and nasty turf battle that stands to stunt UAB's growth and lock it into an idea of what the T-Town trustees believe it should be instead of what it could be. It's bad enough that UAB only has minimal representation on the Board of Trustees, while UA-Huntsville appears as a mere afterthought.

There's always Legion Field.

A 70,000-seat stadium located miles away from the campus that's in desperate need of upgrading (or rebuilding, in my humble opinion). The Gray Lady's seen better days. In contrast, the new on-campus stadium features a more modest 30,000 seats and will most likely be better equipped than Legion Field.

If you build it, they still won't come.

Lack of use and lack of support, two arguments used for almost any city or county venture. It was the same talk used to discourage the city from building the infamous domed stadium. It's a general "why bother?" attitude that helps hold the city back and allows it to stagnate.

Meanwhile, other cities in the state are allowed to grow as they see fit. It's only the Birmingham/Jefferson County area that's bitch-slapped every time it decides to grow beyond adding a few new restaurants in the Highland/Five Points South area.

There are a lot of people out there who want to see the city of Birmingham crumble and have Tuscaloosa or Montgomery take its place. And there are a lot of people who want UAB to "play its position" and cease their silly notions of their silly football team who, mind you, is currently coached by a guy who only got his position because he was buddies with Paul "Bear" Bryant's son. And that guy has a losing streak that's a mile wide and a mile deep:

UAB fans and boosters have long felt that Alabama Trustees were not in favor of the decision to build a football program in 1996. That suspicion gained strength in 2007 when UAB began conducting a search to replace football coach Watson Brown. UAB likely could have hired one of the hottest young coaches in the country to run the program; then-LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher. A few influential UAB boosters proposed that they would assist with donations to help cover Fisher's $600,000 salary, but the Trustees stepped in and squashed the hire, claiming "financial considerations." On its face, that argument appeared bogus. Again, UAB supporters suspected that a few paranoid Trustees feared that UAB might wind up with a better coach than Alabama and that some members of the Board overstepped their boundaries and handpicked another coach, Neil Callaway, which has turned out to be a sub-standard hire.

The reception to Callaway's hire from UAB fans was cool—and with good reason. Five years later, Callaway's record is 16-41, and for 2011, his record is a disappointing 1-8.

He's a veritable dud. But that dud knows Junior, and Junior won't let him go anywhere. The Board of Trustees should stop playing Fiefdom Lords to the serfs in the UA system.