University of California president targets critics of Israel

According to an article by Stephen Zunes here, U. of California president Mark Yudof has initiated a campaign against human rights groups and others who criticize Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza and support Palestinians.

In a March letter, Yudof posted a letter calling protest on campuses against Israel as hateful incidents and compared them to actions meant to intimidate gays, or blacks. The new policy seems to conflate the policies of Israel with the Jewish people so that any criticism of them becomes anti-semitic and hateful. This move seems to be aimed at making an criticisms of Israel simply an expression of anti-semitism and hence to be rejected.

One UCLA Professor David Shorter has received a public reprimand from the chair of the Academic Senate for including material about the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) campaign against Israel even though he also included material that criticized the campaign as well. This strikes me as ominous. The reprimand represents a viewpoint that is even less fair and balanced than Fox News! For much more see the full article. Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco. For more on Zunes see this site.

NOTE: More on Mark Yudof can be found here. The entry notes that Yudof has been criticized for not being forceful enough in his response to events considered anti-semitic at California campuses. There is also this interesting tid-bit:

""Also in 2009, Yudof came under criticism for an interview that he gave to Deborah Solomon of the New York Times, Big Man on Campus, in which he joked about taking a pay cut from his salary of over $800,000 to $400,000 in exchange for the White House and Air Force One.""

College Graduates with jobs still need food stamps to survive

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education will challenge the myth that those receiving food stamps and taking advantage of other welfare programs are not working and not educated. The article gives several examples of college graduates who work part time but need to rely on food stamps to help keep their families fed.

Mellissa Bruning-Matteau is white and has a Ph.D. in medieval history. She even has a job as an adjunct professor teaching two course at YavapiCollege in Prescott Arizona.

Bruninga-Matteau thought that she would land a tenure track position at a college or university but she has ended up teaching two courses at poverty wages with no benefits or job security.

She works twenty hours a week at Yavapa an Arizona community college. Her take home pay is about 900 dollars a month. Her rent is 750 dollars but it is that low only because she lives 43 miles from the campus where she teaches so she has the expensive of commuting as well.. Not much left to live on!

She does not blame the college for her plight. Last year Arizona cut the Yavapa operating budget from 4.3 million to 900,000. As a result the college had to cut part time faculty by18,000 hours.

Bruning-Matteau said:"The media gives us this image that people who are on public assistance are dropouts, on drugs or alcohol, and are irresponsible," "I'm not irresponsible. I'm highly educated. I have a whole lot of skills besides knowing about medieval history, and I've had other jobs. I've never made a lot of money, but I've been able to make enough to live on. Until now." The article goes on to describe other graduates facing similar situations to Bruning-Matteau.