23/07/2013
Open Letter Regarding Napolitano's appointment as UC President
From Professor Juan Gómez-Quiñones
Re: Janet Napolitano as U.C. President
Perhaps the U.C. regents, M.G. Yudof, and others responsible for declaring J. Napolitano U.C. President are simply unaware of the importance of the “president’s” position to the California academic community, taxpayers, and worldwide, university relations. A bell should sound for their attention.
U.C. employs a lot of people, enrolls many, many students and costs billions of dollars. The naming of J. Napolitano as UC President had no public accountability or transparency that can be pointed to beyond a press statement announcing the fact as a done deal. In fact some of the regents were not much involved or even asked questions of the candidate or the process, or gave much play to their notions of public good responsibilities via their customary clichés.
To say too quickly that J. Napolitano has no experience for any administrative academic position in California would only evidence of being out of the loop. Obviously here, in naming a university president, the criteria for appointing a divisional dean or even a department chair in the U.C. or CSU system is irrelevant. Not having any experience may be an objection applying to someone running for some public office where voters can vote (i.e. not Arizona) yea or nay; in contrast, experience is not important for one of the most critical positions in the state with the largest population and economy of the country, and the most diverse student enrollment demographically. The last point may be a start for appreciating J. Napolitano’s true credentials. Keep in mind that a private security and surveillance company might be able to match her nearly one million dollar total compensation, costs and benefits, and thus hire her away; we do not know.
And since we do not know or were even asked, we can conjure reasons or criteria that do apply for her “naming.” Readily, one point in her favor is her intensive involvement with human and civil rights in Arizona, not for nothing considered ground zero in both civil rights and educational leadership. Moreover, as we know, she headed the Department of Homeland Security which is aptly named with an underscoring of Security in its name. This is an agency not known for family values but it certainly has international outreach of sorts. Thus J. Napolitano has hands-on experience in making the lives of tens of thousands of persons and families irredeemably miserable probably in numbers exceeded only by those who, whether they know it or not, are part of her telephone and camera trees. If we add these numbers to those of numerous detentions and incarcerations, J. Napolitano is in a world class of her own. And, of course, she should be at a world class institution, not CEO at “Judicial Watch.”
One cannot dismiss her alleged skills as a money maker and spender even though we have not been told of her relations with private donors such as those in Phoenix who seek to fix elections or the major foundations also there who target dissenters. Finally, her best credential which she polished in Washington D.C. and Arizona B.C. is that she knows the ways of politicians. She has her steady eyes and sharpened ears on Sacramento, populated by individuals who love attention.
One side benefit of her appointment, which may interest the U.C. full professors in particular, is the attention sure to be garnered by her campus visits and the research work her prosecutorial activities generate. Thus J. Napolitano’s appointment may auger well for the rest of the 21st Century and academics sometimes do need a nudge into the future.
Well, a bell for Adano; no cop for U.C. does it.
Juan Gomez-Quiñones
History, UCLA
