CSU’s Pending Ban on Concealed Weapons by Doug Hawk Editor Colorado Higher Ed News Last week, the leaders of the Associated Students at Colorado State University voted overwhelming to support the policy of allowing persons with permits for concealed weapons to continue to carry them on campus. Friday, the CSU System Board of Governors voted 9-0 to ban concealed weapons, leaving the details for implementing the ban to the CSU presidents. While student support for concealed/carry appears quite strong, faculty, staff and administrators are adamantly opposed and who are the trustees going to listen to, students or the people that run the place? Beside, the Governors were likely worried about CSU appearing to be “different,” one of only a few schools in the country to honor concealed/carry permits. Better to be part of the herd than be an outsider. Last year, I went on record supporting concealed weapons on the CSU campus and I haven’t changed my position. And believe me, many of my friends think “I drank the Kool-Aid” or defected to the Dark Side. Not so. All I have at home is an old shotgun. After my stint in the Army during the Vietnam War, I was rabidly anti-gun. I changed my position after I spent considerable time reading in-depth discussions on the Second Amendment. As a strict supporter of the Bills of Rights, I don’t believe they are a smorgasbord from which we can pick and choose what amendment we support. You either support all of the Bill of Rights or none of it. "I bristle at any attempt to limit the Second Amendment," Ed Haselden, a CSU board member, told The Denver Post. "But if a friend came to me after his son or daughter was killed by someone whose concealed weapon accidentally discharged, I don't know what I would tell them." I, on the other hand, bristle at hypocrisy. Haseldon’s bristling declaration of support for the Second Amendment makes him appear fair-minded and patriotic; however, when people add the qualifying “but” to their declaration, you know that the first part of their claim is pure baloney. Of course, the right to bear arms doesn’t necessarily mean the right to have a concealed weapon on your person; however, CSU has had the concealed weapons policy in place since 2003 and there have no incidents, or at least none that have been reported. And, let’s face it, if there had been an incident, we’d have heard about it. The people who carry concealed weapons in Colorado have to be 21, vetted and trained. I have a friend who worked at a gas station in Denver 30 years ago. One night a robber appeared, shoved a gun in his face and demanded all the money; a lousy thirty bucks. My pal gave it to him and told him to “walk away.” Instead, the robber began firing wildly. As a couple of shots pockmarked the bricks behind him, my friend reached under the counter for a .38 revolver that the day manager had left. He returned fire, hitting the robber twice. They found the bandit the next day sitting under a tree in City Park. He was dead. A Denver detective spent a week proving that it was self-defense. Not that my friend, an illustrator by trade, was soothed. The fact that he had killed someone sent him spiraling down the rabbit hole of drugs and booze and it was couple of years before he emerged changed, weary and sad. I mention all of that, because killing is serious business and not something anyone should take lightly and while police and prosecutors generally take a dim view of self-defense as a defense, it does seem to be a human right. Now, granted carrying weapons onto a college campus isn’t the best scenario; however, in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre – one lone student killed 32 people and wounded another 23 before committing suicide – I have come to believe that had there been people on that campus with concealed weapons, lives could have been saved. Instead, students were trapped in classrooms, easy targets for the crazed shooter bent on killing as many people as possible. He directly impacted the lives of 55 people that day and indirectly impacted the lives of thousands more. Yet, even in the light of the Virginia Tech slaughter, many, if not most, CSU faculty members support the ban on concealed/carried guns. In a rampage, if there were armed students returning fire, they argue, innocent bystanders might be caught in the crossfire. As opposed, I guess, to the 32 unarmed VT students shot where they stood or cowered. I wonder what Ed Haselden will tell his friend, if, God forbid, an insane gunman runs amok on CSU’s campus and kills dozens of students? “Gosh, sorry, at least it wasn’t a misfire from a concealed weapon.” That’s what it comes down to for me. I hate debates that become emotional; however, how can anyone debate this issue without considering those students gunned down at Virginia Tech and other schools? They were trapped. There was no place run. No place to hide. No way to defend themselves against the man hell-bent on killing them. ________________________________________________ Closing Colorado Public Colleges is Now a Distinct Possibility By Doug Hawk Editor, Colorado Higher Ed News Colorado State Senator Chris Romer suggested last week that for the state’s higher education system to remain viable and so as not to place the accreditation of our larger institutions in jeopardy, it may be necessary to close two or three four-year colleges. Son of former Colorado Governor Roy Romer, Chris Romer is a pragmatic, thoughtful legislator and not given to outlandish proclamations such as the far-right whack-jobs who have suggested that the state has no business educating anybody. I’m willing to bet Romer would loath to see any college close. I imagine that he, like most of us, would cringe at the thought of actually shuttering an institution, dismantling laboratories and studios, classrooms and offices. I doubt if he wants to see hundreds of people lose their jobs or watch whole economies, already burdened by the Neo-Cons’ recession, further stymied, perhaps beyond all hope. I cannot believe that Romer hasn’t lost sleep trying to find solutions to this TABOR-spawned nightmare. First, let consider which institutions would be safe. The University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Mines will automatically get immunity. CSU-Pueblo, CU Denver, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and Metropolitan State College of Denver will probably remain untouchable, too. Maybe the University of Northern Colorado will be safe, although it could be targeted for reasons I’ll delineate below. However, if we’re going to even consider closing some four-year schools, which ones? Adams State College in Alamosa – my alma mater, of which I am very proud – has served the San Luis Valley educationally, culturally and artisticly for nearly 85 years. Granted, Trinidad State Junior College has a very successful campus in Alamosa, but would we really want to close a four-year school and, by extension, deny a baccalaureate education to thousands of people without the financial resources to live on-campus at some Front Range institution? Maybe the powers-that-be will close Western State College in Gunnison. Established in 1901, it’s now 108 years old and was the first college built on the Western Slope and is the fourth oldest public college in the state. Like Adams State, WSC serves a distinct population that will be deprived of opportunities, should it close. Mesa State College in Grand Junction might be targeted for closure, too. Tim Foster, a well-known Republican and former executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, was awarded the Mesa State presidency by Governor Bill Owens and the process by which the Mesa State trustees gave it to him was not only called into question, but proved to have been riddled with trustee shenanigans. To his credit, Foster seems to be doing a good job at MSC. Mesa State like Adams State was founded in 1925 and has been a mainstay in Grand Junction and the Western Slope for almost 85 years. Still, it doesn’t have the political clout that any of the Front Range colleges have and consequently could find itself on the cropping block. Plus, given Foster’s appointment process and some of the questionable practices of CCHE under his leadership, Democrats may look at MSC as expendable.  That holds true with UNC in Greeley, too. Kay Norton, an attorney and wife of well-known Republican Tom Norton, was given the UNC presidency by Owens, who treated higher ed presidencies much like party favors. Norton’s husband, former president of the Colorado Senate and a member of Owens’ cabinet as executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, was just recently elected mayor of Greeley. Since they are both old Owens’ allies, things may not bode well for UNC’s future. I mentioned that Metro State is safe. That’s due, in large part, to its activist and vocal alumni. Trying close Metro State would be tantamount to declaring war and I’m not sure the Colorado legislature wants to go toe-to-toe with Metro’s supporters. The thing is, Senator Chris Romer’s suggestion that two or three institutions of higher education be closed is not simply hyperbole or grandstanding. Thanks to the fat cats who sank the economy and have now scurried back into their dark places to count their ill-gotten gains, Colorado’s budget is shrinking by the day. Something has to give. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of all of this is that Democrats, the people who have long been higher education’s chief proponents, are now the ones who will have to do the dirty work of damaging Colorado’s higher ed infrastructure. If you don’t think that doesn’t delight the anti-higher ed Neo-Cons, think again. Who said irony is dead? Communities like Alamosa, Gunnison, and Grand Junction, lacking political clout, may find themselves without a college. If that happens, they have no one to blame but all of us who have sat around for a decade doing nothing about the festering pustule that is TABOR. __________________________ Tom Tancredo and the Global Ed Witch Hunt by Doug Hawk Editor Colorado Higher Ed News Tom Tancredo wants to run for Colorado governor. It’s an exciting prospect for any Democrat. Tancredo? For Governor? Really? I admit, I’m no Tancredo fan. While I don’t believe he’s the racist many people have labeled him, even though illegal immigrants make him frothing as the mouth like a rabid badger, I do think he’s too much a right-wing extremist for the state and, seriously, the idea of Tom wooing enough voters to put him into office is difficult to imagine. Still, Bill Owens managed to woo plenty of voters, twice, to win the governorship and Owens and Tancredo are cut from the same right-wing fringe cloth. My objection to Tancredo goes back to 1986. In 1981, the early days of the Reagan Administration, Tancredo was appointed a regional representative for the U.S. Department of Education. A few years later, he thrust himself into the spotlight with “Blowing the Whistle on Global Education,” a mimeographed, 29-page report that everyone believed he wrote, but which was actually written by the more obscure Greg L. Cunningham. The up-thrust of the document was that global education, popular in the curriculum of many public schools, was actually “parroting the Soviet propaganda line.” Keep in mind, in the mid-80s the Cold War was still pretty chilly, which gave the far right the communist bloc to use as a convenient and ubiquitous bogeyman. One of the primary targets of the Tancredo/Cunningham assault was the Center for Teaching International Relations, an arm of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. CTIR published teaching aides and books for global education teachers. One book in particular raised Tancredo’s hackles, ''World Citizen Curriculum,'' a 300-page, touchy-feely book which opened with: ''Whether we recognize it or not, all of us are engaged in either resisting or creating a new world order.'' The Cunningham/Tancredo document made several claims, beginning with the idea that global education in general and CTIR in particular promoted “a new world order” or “one-worldism.” Additionally, they charged that global ed was anti-capitalism – always a popular right-wing canard – anti-nuclear, pro-pacifism, anti-nationalism, and taught students “to be comfortable with ambiguity.” Ah, yes, if the entire world was truly delineated between black and white and there were none of those annoying gray areas in which complex issues are, well, complex, won’t everything be just peachy? Armed with the mimeographed document, Tancredo began making the rounds of right-wing radio, particularly the Mike Rosen and Peter Boyles shows. After CTIR educators visited with Rosen and Boyles a couple of times and were assailed mercilessly, they stopped addressing their attackers. Still, for a few weeks, it was a messy affair. At the time I was the assistant director of public relations at DU and found myself in the middle of all of this hoopla, although the good people at CTIR and GSIS did an admirable job of handling the controversy and really didn’t need a flak catcher. Tancredo managed to get a little national attention and some schools tossed out the CTIR materials and one or two unfortunate teachers lost their jobs after a few hysterical parents went ballistic. I recall Tancredo on a talk radio one day, denouncing one of CTIR’s publications. “Listen, to what they’re teaching our children,” he told the host and proceeded to read a passage describing communism as a form of government in straight-forward, non-judgmental terms. I compared what he read, which was accurate, to the source book. Turned out, it was on an innocuous page in which four systems of government – democracy, communism, monarchy and dictatorship - were discussed. No system was promoted, which was, of course, the problem for Tancredo. One last point, when I read “Blowing the Whistle on Global Education” I tried to evaluate it objectively and, objectively, what really bothered me was the writing. Having been educated as a teacher and a journalist, I found the document on par with the average freshman term paper…high school freshman, I should clarify. It was as poorly written as anything from the government I have ever read and that it was published under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education, Region VIII, was both flabbergasting and embarrassing. Should Tom Tancredo run for governor, it will be interesting; should the unlikely happen and he gets elected, prepare for more unbridled witch hunts.

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Anti-58's Reiter is the Joe Isuzu of This Political Season

In Governor Bill Ritter's attempt to end the money giveaway to the oil and gas pirates, Rick Reiter, the "political consultant" leading the charge against Amendment 58 has emerged as the Joe Isuzu of the 2008 Colorado election season.

Anyone over 30 remembers actor David Leisure's hilarious Joe Isuzu ads in which he made extravagant and extreme claims and pronouncements about Isuzu cars immediately followed by the on-screen phrase: "He's lying."

Well, folks, whenever an anti-58 ad appears, viewers should say aloud: "He's lying."

Apparently Reiter never met a truth he couldn't twist or a lie he wouldn't tell. Of course, when you're bought and paid for by Big Oil, a Judas with a hefty purse, what can you do? I must assume that ethics, morals and scruples are secondary to a few pieces of silver.

In true Joe Isuzu fashion, Reiter's ads claim that if Amendment 58 passes, ending the enormous and outrages tax subsidy currently enjoyed by the oil and gas pirates operating in Colorado, the cost will be passed on to consumers "dollar-for-dollar." Hyperbole worthy of Karl Rove.

As Bob Ewegen, assistant editorial page editor for The Denver Post pointed out: "Industry claims that this new tax will be passed on 'dollar for dollar' to Coloradans are obviously false. Two-thirds of our natural gas is sold out of state and many factors affect the wholesale price of the remaining gas sold within the state."

It's interesting that Reiter is getting away with such lies and distortions. If a car dealer advertised vehicles with the same recklessness, lies, and distortions that Reiter uses, they'd be investigated and face possible civil and/or criminal charges. In fact, the Colorado Department of Revenue has 16 rules auto dealers must follow in their advertising. Shouldn't we expect the same or at least some parameters for political advertising? Shouldn't liars like Rick Reiter be held to a standard comparable to car ads? After all, we're talking about issues that impact every citizen in the state. Why should some amoral fly-by-night operative seemingly with the integrity of a bag of door knobs be able to lie with impunity and immunity?

Joe Isuzu would be ashamed and Reiter, too, should be.

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Amendment 50: Much Needed Help for Colorado's Community Colleges

Community colleges are welcoming places. Other than age, there is no litmus test to enroll. ACTs and SATs are unimportant. If a person wants to learn, they'll be afforded the chance. The two-year colleges are all about access and opportunity.

Yet, for all of their successes and the vast number of Coloradans who owe two-year colleges their careers, the public and many members of the General Assembly are strangely ambivalent toward them while others treat the two-year schools like the runt of the litter.

Too often, snooty pseudo-intellectuals fancying themselves "educated" because they went to some high-priced or out-of-state institution malign our community colleges out of abject ignorance. Never mind that these self-appointed critics haven't read a book since graduating, watch The Daily Show to get their news and believe it was mommy and daddy's obligation to pay for their higher education. Their bias and bigotry toward community colleges underscores their lack of real understanding about the value of two-year schools.

While Colorado's community colleges can't squeeze blood out of a turnip, they're awfully good at stretching a buck further than most four-year colleges. They've been doing so successfully, if reluctantly, for a long time, particularly during and since the dark, anti-education years of the Owens Administration.*

Now, proposed Amendment 50 would generate much-needed funding for community colleges if increases in betting limits are approved in Colorado's gambling dens. The two-year schools see the potential as a God-send and, to be sure, if upping the stakes on legal gambling bets can increase funding to community colleges, then, by all means let's do it. 

At least half of all freshmen and sophomores in Colorado attend a community college and many of them graduate with an associate's degree that lands them a high-paying job with the potential for progressively more opportunity, responsibility and income. Research first conducted in 1992 and repeated more recently, found that those two-year students transferring to four-year colleges do as well as or better than the native four-year college/university students. With the average age of community college students hovering around 27 and with more than half of them women, the two-year schools offer a mature, no-nonsense and vigorously academic environment.

The opposition to Amendment 50 is weak sauce. "What happens in Vegas, stays out of Colorado." Please. Gambling is here. The demon was let loose nearly two decades ago and there's no recapturing it. Arguments about protecting gamblers from themselves are nanny-whines reeking of patronizing condescension. Let's not wring our hands or moralize about the decaying of the American culture. Leave that to preachers and priests, our trained hand-wringing, moralizing professionals.

The bottom line is relatively simple: Amendment 50 holds the promise of providing much-needed funding for Colorado's community colleges. If it passes, there appears to be a few wrinkles that will need to be ironed-out; however, it offers a glimmer of hope for increased funding to support the colleges that are driving Colorado's economic engine.
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*A forthcoming series of editorials will detail Bill Owens vs. the community colleges.

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In the Work-a-Day World, Whiners Seldom Win

Mike Rosen, Denver's conservative knee-jerk king, recently took Metro State College administrators to task for an asinine assignment handed out by an English instructor aimed at demeaning Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

According to Rosen, the only reason we know about the instructor was due to "...courageous conservative students in his class (who) have stood up for their beliefs and blown the whistle on him." Their complaint earned them a spot on Rosen's liberal-bashing morning gabfest.

Rosen reported that the instructor likes to drop the F-bomb in his lectures and reportedly announced to his class that "Republican students are 'full of s---.'" Let's be clear here, if the guy swears like a drunken marine in his classroom and denounces the political viewpoints and values of his students, he's painfully unprofessional and remarkably tactless, not to mention insensitive and boorish.

Most people who've gone to college have had to suffer the slings and arrows of at least one outrageous professor with more learning than good sense. (For this commentator, high school was far worse with a speech teacher who routinely denounced Martin Luther King as a communist.)

The point is, as we travel along life's bumpy path, we're going to encounter people with opinions and views that we find odious, obnoxious, outrageous and offensive. That's simply part of life's rough texture.

When the courageous conservative students or their liberal counterparts are out in the real work-a-day world they might lodge a complaint against their supervisor for some inappropriate political remark, but what if it's not the supervisor, what if it's the big boss, the CEO or company's owner? Sure, they can make the complaint and then, a few weeks later, when a sudden round of lay-offs appear, wonder why they made the list. Or, less drastic, a promised promotion never materializes or the move to a nicer cubicle never happens.

Suppose one of these courageous students reaches a point where they're part of the CEO's inner circle, not because of shared political beliefs, but based on position and performance. During some executive meeting when the CEO makes some grating liberal pronouncement, will they speak out to defend their conservative views or do, as most others will do, keep their mouths shut and continue to perform their jobs and keep their positions?

Unlike sexual harassment or physical abuse in the workplace, in the real work-a-day world unwanted political commentary can come from anywhere at anytime and common sense suggests its best not to complain about all of it. (Well, yes, you can, but then you'll be labeled a "whack-o pain-in-the-a--." Such an individual quickly becomes a person to be avoided and shunned.)

There's no defense for the instructor's vulgarity and sophomoric assignment. The courageous conservative students were certainly well within their rights to complain. However, when they are out there working in the cubicle city among the drones and suits, carrying their complaints to the media wouldn't happen and too many trips to the HR department will earn them no bonus points either.

As a backroom pundit used to say: "Life's tough all over, not just in spots."

Comments? editor@coloradohigherednews.com

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The Petroleum Vampires are Sucking Us Dry

By
Doug Hawk
Editor, Colorado Higher Ed News

orrect me if I'm wrong, but aren't most American oilmen free market fanatics? Don't they believe that the free market is mother's milk of free enterprise, the only true and proper way to conduct business and turn a profit?

Of course, the oil guys now in Colorado are like vampires sucking the taxpayers dry from both ends of the pipeline, so to speak. While they're making record profits at the pumps, they're getting an enormous, and dare I say almost criminally-generous, tax break from Colorado taxpayers. Amendment 58 would stop the hemorrhaging caused by an unbelievably generous property tax credit the oil industry in Colorado now enjoys and bring in more than $300 million in energy taxes annually, much of the funding to be used for college scholarships.  

Since Governor Bill Ritter proposed closing that tax loophole, the petroleum vampires have wailed loudly and gnashed their fangs. Unwilling to pay for what they suck out of us, the oil companies have formed a cabal with a handsome $10 million in funding. With a determined viciousness worthy of Dracula himself, they're using vast, taxpayer-derived resources to conduct a political smear campaign filled with half-truths, innuendoes, veiled threats and outright lies. In short, the oil men are demonstrating behavior in keeping with the public's view of them: Lying, cheating, conniving bloodsuckers with the moral center of child molesters.

Free market economics are all well and good if you can fleece the public at the same time. But just try to make the petroleum vampires pony up their fair share of money to compensate Coloradoans for the natural and finite resources they're sucking out of the state's geology. The alleged free marketers are now thrashing about, shrill and shrieking, as if a stake has been driven into their collective hearts (an impossibility, since they have no hearts through which to pound Mr. Pointy).

Oh, and by the way, their veiled threats that to remove the generous tax break might result in a slowdown or complete pullout from Colorado oil fields flies in the face of the facts according to a report in The Denver Post (Sept. 21) that cited 763 drilling permits approved monthly by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission between June and August with the number of drilling rigs increased by 12 percent between May 7 and Sept. 9.

Amendment 58 may go down in flames thanks to the oil industry's unrelenting, untruthful and vicious attacks, but as a consolation, we have now seen their true faces and flashing fangs and found in them no friends, only fiends who will suck us dry before scurrying away to the comforting, well-padded and wealthy darkness from which they were spawned.

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Initiative 82: A Logical Solution to Racist Amendment 46

As has been discussed here previously, Amendment 46, the anti-affirmative action measure that will appear on Colorado's November ballot, seeks to curtail equal opportunity and access, especially in all public higher education. Backed by an incredibly powerful and scary right-wing collation, the Amendment, we are told, will eliminate "quotas." The blood-chilling Q-word.

Coloradans for Equality Opportunity is setting forth its own ballot proposal in the form of Initiative 82 that "...makes it clear that Coloradans won't tolerate quotas or point systems in public education or contracting, but preserves important programs like mentoring for freshman college women, fitness programs for young girls, recruitment programs for male nurses and teachers and leadership training for minority high school students."

In other words, no quotas but equal access and opportunity. It's a reasonable and logical approach that will appeal to the huge contingent of Coloradans who view themselves as live-and-let-live Americans believing in opportunity, access and justice for everyone.

Obviously the proponents of Amendment 46 are unhappy about Initiative 82. Anti-affirmative action initiatives have been winning across the country because they link affirmative action to quotas.

Here in Colorado - as well as in Arizona and Nebraska -- they have crafted an amendment to make sure their white supporters continue to have all the advantages without any annoying minority interference and then along comes Initiative 82 that undermines all they're attempting to do.

"There is a genuine concern about the use of quotas in higher education - whether it's happening or not. It's not supposed to be happening, but many people obviously think that it is, so we'll agree that it shouldn't be happening," Melissa Hart, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the president of Coloradans for Equal Opportunity, told Inside Higher Ed.

Coloradans for Equal Opportunity have submitted sufficient signatures to get the measure on the November ballot and are now awaiting a ruling from the Secretary of State. However, if Initiative 82 does get approval for an appearance on the ballot, it's like that the proponents of Amendment 46 will rush to court and file suit.

Should both measures go head-to-head before the electorate, there are a few enticing possibilities: one could be approved and another dismissed, both could be rejected or, most intriguing, both could be approved. In the latter case, the Colorado Supreme Court would have to work out the details and unknot the conflicts.

Whatever the results, the eyes of the nation will be on Colorado. We can only hope that we don't enact some draconian measure that will embarrass us in front of the country.

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Amendment 46: Pandering to the Fearful

Less than 20 years ago, a Black Studies class from Denver's Montbello High School visited a predominantly white high school in southeast Aurora. While there, students from the Aurora high school performed a program in black-face. The Montbello contingent, all African-American except for one white student, sat in stunned silence, until a young woman in the group stood, surveyed the room and asked: "Do any of you know how offensive that was?"

Although the presentation was not intended to be a racist assault on the visiting students, it's astounding that the students and teachers at the host school were so unaware that a black-face presentation was shockingly racist and insulting. Seemingly at no point was there an administrator, teacher or student with an internal voice that cried: "Whoa, whoa, wait! That's a freakin' bad idea!"

While diversity is a hot button issue among xenophobes, racists and other members of the knee-jerk crowd, in truth, cultural and ethnic multiplicity is the easiest way to breakdown barriers, shatter stereotypes and create links between divergent groups. Conversely, isolating people by race creates the kind of racial intolerance propelling the current drive to enact Amendment 46, the anti-affirmative action measure that will appear on Colorado's November ballot.

Leading the charge for the passage of Amendment 46 is the Independence Institute, which features on its web page promoting the measure an image of a young white boy eating an ice cream cone and a young black girl trying to get a bite. The irony of the photo could not be more pronounced. It would be nice to believe the image was inadvertently selected; however, that's asking a lot given the intellectual star-power behind the institute.

The issues of diversity and affirmative action are much more complex than portrayed by the neo-Jim Crow crowd. As stated here before, if we assume that the playing field is level for all Americans, then, of course, affirmative action and drives for diversity are unnecessary. However, only the terminally witless believe that. The playing field is not simply skewed, it's tilted beyond reason in favor of privileged white people and a systematically racist white culture that already controls about 90 percent of everything, which, apparently, isn't enough.

Cedric Herring, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois, looked beyond diversity as a "good thing" and conducted a scientific study questioning whether or not diversity makes any difference. What he found was a "linear relationship between diversity and business success, meaning that as diversity increases, those business indicators increase in step." In short, a business with a diverse workforce has more customers, a greater market share and greater profitability.

A 2006 study published in Child Development, a journal from the Society for Research in Child Development, found that white children enrolled in predominantly white schools are more likely to view black children negatively. In more diverse school setting, the findings found far less negativity in white children toward black children.

Affirmative action was instituted to give minorities and women greater access to educational and career opportunities. It is our opinion that Amendment 46 and those behind it begrudge anyone that doesn't look like them from getting access to the American Dream. They can dress up their ideas however they like, but in the end, these fearful xenophobes are just performing in black-face and trying to make the rest of us believe they're not wild-eyed racists.

Comments? Email editor@ColoradoHigherEdNews.com

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Public Dollars to Private Institutions?

When the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled last month that Colorado could not deny Colorado Christian University students -- and by extension any student attending a private religious institution -- access to state scholarship dollars it was viewed as a major victory for religious colleges.

The state ran into trouble when it tried to define who could get public scholarship dollars and who could not. The state has allowed public funds for use at some religious universities, specifically Regis University (Roman Catholic) and the University of Denver (Methodist) and barred the funds from a Buddhist institution and the nondenominational CCU. The state termed those institutions as ineligible because they were "pervasively sectarian" - too religious. 

It's not difficult to see the distinction that was trying to be drawn. Students attending Regis University do not have to be Catholic, are not compelled to attend church and are not subjected to a religious litmus test. While there is still a Methodist affiliation at the University of Denver, it's nominal and the institution is so far removed from sectarian as to be a poster institution for cultural and religious diversity, attracting students from throughout the world. And beyond the occasionally drunken antics of some rich, white frat-boy gone stupid, DU is an amazingly tolerate and welcoming institution.

Although nondenominational, CCU's 2,000 students must sign a pledge to emulate Jesus in their life and are required to visit chapel at least once a week. Faculty members must sign a statement that the Bible is the "infallible Word of God." Such requirements do draw a sharp distinction between sectarian and secular.

Frequently when the debate over the separation of church and state arises, someone always blurts out that "it isn't in the Constitution." Many historians point to a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 explaining that the First Amendment was established as a wall between government and religious institutions as the origin of concept of separation between church and state. Those opposing the idea often overlook the fact that if the barrier between church and state falls, then it's not just the church that can touch government, but government that can touch the church.

Last Friday, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and the Department of Higher Education announced that they will not fight 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. It's a hot potato and is now squarely in the lap of the Colorado General Assembly.

In that light, it seems state lawmakers have three choices: (1) They can ignore the entire issue and let state scholarship dollars flow to private institutions. (2) They can pass legislation that will bar any student attending a non-public college or university in the state from receiving state scholarship funds. (3) Or they can allow the present ruling to stand but impose more rules and regulations on the non-public colleges and universities, the major dilemma for such institutions when the wall between church and state falls.

Comments? Email editor@ColoradoHigherEdNews.com

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Why the Colorado Higher Ed News is Blog Free

Why doesn't the Colorado Higher Ed News have a blog where any Tom, Dick or Harry - or Tomasina, Dicra or Harriett - can post anonymously whatever scurrilous, vindictive or outrageous comments they wish? After all, such blogs increase a Website's hits and hits translate to higher placement in search engines and so forth and so on, blah, blah, blah.

"In theory, it's a great thing. We're giving the people a voice! But the reality is that commenting either attracts loathsome people or somehow causes ordinary people to express themselves in a way that is loathsome," writes Lev Grossman, discussing anonymous blogs in his Time Magazine column, "Post Apocalypse" (July 21).

For proof, one has only to go online, find a site with news articles and read the comments posted by readers. Many comments are cruelly perverse if not downright depraved. If Grossman is right and the anonymity of a site makes ordinary people post extraordinarily abhorrent messages, then there is a darkness lurking inside people that these blogs unleashes. 

Respectable newspapers still avoid printing anonymous letters unless protecting the writer's identity is a security matter and the letter is important enough to publish. Unfortunately, those same newspapers have website blogs where any muttonhead with a keyboard can rant and rave until frothing at the mouth.

In truth, these anonymous blogs give power to cowards who suddenly feel that they have license to say whatever malicious and, often, utterly asinine drivel pops into their little minds. Hiding at home or in an office or at an internet café, safe from any reprisal, they secretly blather on, hurling invectives and cruelties without worrying about a friend, acquaintance or colleague seeing it and identifying them as a miscreant. These anonymous blogs create the perfect storm; the gutless have a forum to demonstrate their gutlessness.

Real people with real thoughts, sound and reasoned, are never afraid of owning their opinions. They write what they believe and submit it knowing full well that some, perhaps many, will disagree. Why should that matter? If the opinion is honest, well-conceived and well delineated, then having one's name attached to it should not make anyone fearful.

Here at the Colorado Higher Ed News we don't have to tolerate anonymous rants written by cringing cowards too fearful of the world to put their name on their thoughts - and, really, how much more cowardly can some people get? Refusing to own their opinions is like trying to distance themselves from their face. Not having a forum where readers can comment is preferable to having an anonymous blog where any Tomcat99, Dickman10 or HarryNads can post whatever stupid idea pops into what is laughingly referred to as a mind.  

Comments? Email editor@ColoradoHigherEdNews.com

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A Four-Day Work Week for Higher Ed?

State Representative Don Marostica (R-Loveland) has put forth a proposal for legislation to create a four-day work week for state employees in an effort to diminish greenhouse gases, alleviate highway congestion and cut the state's utility costs.

In response, last Saturday's edition of The Rocky Mountain News stamped its collective editorial foot and denounced the plan. Some of the newspaper's arguments were absolutely valid, citing agencies that deal directly with the public - driver's license offices, public assistance, taxes, public safety, emergency services, courts and parks - in which customer service is a cornerstone. (Of course, with some of these agencies, when mentioning "customer service" it's a good idea to keep one's tongue firmly planted in one's cheek.)

However, a key state agency the newspaper avoided mentioning is higher education. A four-day work week for colleges and universities has several advantages, especially for the majority of community colleges and rural four-year institutions that have a student body largely comprised of commuters. For example, while Adams State College in Alamosa has student dorms, well over half of its student body commutes from points all over the San Luis Valley, meaning some students drive 80 to 100 miles around trip to attend classes.

Similarly, students attending community colleges in Fort Morgan, Sterling, La Junta, Lamar, Trinidad, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Rangely, Craig, Fort Collins, Greeley or the numerous campuses of Colorado Mountain College or Western Colorado Community College or those enrolled at technical colleges in Cortez, Montrose, Aurora or downtown Denver or at Western State College in Gunnison or Mesa State College in Grand Junction could all benefit from a four day school week. To a lesser degree, that holds true for students attend any of the five Denver Metro Area community colleges, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the University of Colorado Denver.

For colleges and universities to shift many courses to a Monday through Thursday schedule would be relatively painless. In some case, of course, this wouldn't work.   Medical school training or clinical experiences for nurses, x-ray technicians and other healthcare professions that depend upon the availability of space in hospitals, clinics, care facilities or other institutions, which is often limited and must be accessed when there is available supervisory staff, would have to be an exception.

Then again, it would be difficult to make an argument that not holding Friday classes in say law school, the humanities, mathematics and sciences, and other areas would somehow damage a student's educational opportunities.

Frankly, a four-day work week for Colorado higher education could achieve some of the savings Marostica hopes to achieve for the institutions and their faculties, staffs and students.

But let's be honest. It'll never happen. The Rocky Mountain News sums it up in its editorial screed: "We're confident that with a full public vetting, lawmakers will conclude that giving state workers an extra day off is no bargain for most Coloradans."

The truth is, if a four-day week was enacted for higher education, the knee-jerk radio hate commentators and newspaper hate mongers would whine like scalded children. They already despise public higher education in general and its faculties in particular and take every opportunity to malign them. One can only imagine what they would do if suddenly the object of their revulsion was granted a four-ten work week.

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Carpetbaggers' Greed Will Kill the Colorado Promise Scholarships

Coloradans for a Stable Economy, the oil and gas industry's lobbying group opposing the Colorado Promise Scholarships initiative, has suggested that if the measure passes in November, the industry may cut back on oil and gas production in the state.

Ah, yes, a threat by any other name...

If approved by voters in November, Governor Bill Ritter's Colorado Promise Scholarships would be funded by removing a sweetheart tax break that allows the oil and gas industry to shirk paying their fair share of property taxes, while extracting finite resources from the state. At a time when the industry is enjoying record profits and Americans are paying exorbitant prices for all their energy needs, the oil and gas people again show their underlying avarice, greed and treachery.

In opposing the initiative, Coloradans for a Stable Economy had no trouble raising nearly $500,000 from five companies. One can only imagine those phone calls.

"These yokels want us to pay property taxes."

"Who the hell do they think they are?"

"Exactly! Think you can pony up a hundred grand to save yourself $60,000,000 in taxes?"

"That's why the call it chump change, pal."

Last week at the monthly meeting of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, Coloradans for a Stable Economy's Bill Ray intimated that the cutback in production might be the direct result of a winning vote for the scholarship initiative in the fall. It's really not likely, however, given that they can't pull up stakes and find Colorado's oil and gas somewhere else.

Earlier this month, the oil and gas lobbyists suggested voters won't support a new tax, as if the oil and gas property taxes will be levied against taxpayers and not a greed-driven industry; an industry, by the way, that not so many years back raped Colorado's Western Slope when it abruptly pulled out of oil shale operations and abandoned hundreds of workers - workers imported by the same industry - leaving them destitute and all but killing the communities of Parachute and Battlement Mesa. Of course, these days Western Slope politicians, their long-term memories stunted, are buzzing around the industry like flies on a dung heap.

Maybe it is too late to save the Colorado Promise Scholarships. After all, opposition extends beyond the oil and gas industry and its bought and paid for politicians to include many of the CEOs of the state's public institutions of higher education and Republicans trying desperately to embarrass and humiliate Governor Ritter under the spotlight of the Democratic National Convention.

Still, it's sad that Colorado - a state once proud of its individuality and integrity - is willing to allow a group of carpetbaggers the right to extract finite resources while cheating the state's citizens out of due compensation that could aid thousands of students in pursuing a higher education.


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Concealed Weapons on Campus: A Logical Option to Prevent More Slaughter

he massacres at Virginia Tech University in April 2007 and at Northern Illinois University in February of this year, have triggered a wave of initiatives around the country to allow faculty, staff and students duly trained and with appropriate permits to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. Among the leading proponents of this effort is Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), a national umbrella organization with representatives in every state.

SCCC will hold its first national conference, Aug. 1 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. with guest speaker Dr. John R. Lott, a well-known scholar and author of More Guns Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws.

The idea of concealed weapons on campus often brings out a knee-jerk hysteria from people opposed to the Second Amendment in general and guns of any kind in particular. However, these same people are often strong proponents of the Bill of Rights - the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Bill of Rights is not nor should it ever be a cafeteria menu. "Oh, I like free speech and freedom of religion, but a free press, I dunno, maybe it should be reigned in." Or, "The First Amendment is sacrosanct, but that Second Amendment, well that's just got to go."

Sorry, but the Bill of Rights is an all or nothing proposition. If we allow changes to one amendment, then logically we have to allow changes to any and all of them. Do we really want politicians, fanatics and out and out kooks fiddling with our rights to be free of unreasonable search and seizure - a right often abridged by overzealous police and municipalities - or our right to speak freely or to have a fair and public trial? Routinely, a crop of zealots appear calling for a new Constitutional convention to amend those pesky rights. And it's always a bad idea fraught with hidden agendas and dodgy motives.

As to the idea of conceal-carry on college campuses, looking beyond the initial knee-jerk reaction, there are strong arguments in its favor. For example, since 2006, the State of Utah has allowed individuals holding concealed weapons permits to carry guns on all nine of its public university campuses. For nearly 14 years, Blue Ridge Community College in Virginia has allowed concealed weapons on its campus. None of these institutions has had any gun violence, gun accidents, or a single gun theft.

One point that opponents of conceal-carry often make is, "I don't feel safe on campus knowing people are carrying weapons." Colin Lundholm, a Red Rocks Community College student and one of SCCC's Colorado advocates, answered the question quite simply: "Do you feel safe going to the movie theater, the bank or to church? There are people in all of those places carrying concealed weapons."

An argument offered by opponents is that in the instances of the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois shootings, there was considerable chaos and someone with a gun trying to stop the shooter might have hit innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. That argument implies that it is better to have an armed psychopath gunning down people hiding under desks or fleeing down hallways than to have individuals who have been trained to use weapons and vetted by the state as stable and responsible returning fire and likely stopping the aggressor before killing more people.

The argument that more guns means more crime and violence is refuted by state and national statistics that reveal people with conceal-carry permits are highly responsible and law-abiding.

Some opponents worry that a person with a conceal-carry permit on campus will go nuts and start shooting. However, the United States Secret Service Threat Assessment Center's study, "Safe School Initiative: An Interim Report on the Prevention of Targeted Violence in Schools," found that school shooters do not suddenly go berserk, but rather turn dangerous and violent after a spiraling descent that draws the attention of one or more people.

According to SCCC President Michael Guzman, last week's Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment "won't have much impact" on conceal-carry on college campuses. Scott Moss, associate professor of law at the University of Colorado School of Law, agrees.

"I don't know that the Heller ruling impacts regulations of guns on campuses, because Justice Scalia's majority opinion said, '...nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings...'"

However, no one wants another bloodbath like Virginia Tech and only the most obtuse want college campuses to become walled compounds or fortresses as opposed to open and accessible communities. Nor are we suggesting some Hollywood western mythos where people walk around with a holstered .44 Hogleg tied down on their thigh. Allowing individuals with proper training and holding a concealed-carry permit on a college campus is reasonable and prudent and should not cause undo concern for those squeamish about guns. For one thing, the term "concealed" means that no one will know who's carrying a weapon and who's not.

No amount of wishful thinking, reasoned rhetoric or prayer vigils will stop a determined and armed psychopath. As gruesome as it may sound to some, occasionally one must fight gunfire with gunfire.

And for those Coloradoans alarmed by the prospect of guns on campus, consider this: Colorado State University in Fort Collins has allowed conceal-carry on its campus for close to six years and, like Utah's nine public universities and Virginia's Blue Ridge Community College, there has not been a single incident of gun violence, a gun accident or a gun theft.
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Comments? Email editor@ColoradoHigherEdNews.com

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Amendment 46: Racism By Another Name?

mericans have struggled with the issue of race and racial relations for decades. It is a complex and complicated issue that is always seething just below the thin veneer of our national psyche and civility. It is not an issue that lends itself to quick fixes or magic bullets. At its heart it is about people understanding one another and that takes time, effort and commitment. And while they are learning to live together, it is often important to give the minority a bit of an edge to thwart of tyranny of the majority.

Since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there have been forces trying desperately to convince us that anti-discrimination laws are unnecessary. Now, Coloradoans are faced with Amendment 46, which, if passed by voters in November, would, among other things, end affirmative action in public higher education. In fact, the Amendment's proponents make it sound remarkably reasonable: 

"An amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning a prohibition against discrimination by the state, and, in connection therewith, prohibiting the state from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting..."

Of course, the reality is a little more jarring. This amendment is patterned after similar efforts in California, Michigan and Washington and initiated by American Civil Rights Coalition, a California-based movement that focuses on ending affirmative-action programs. Established by Ward Connerly, a wealthy conservative African-American Republican, the American Civil Rights Coalition advocates a colorblind America. That's noble ideal and we don't often find conservatives advocating such sweeping idealism. And we won't find them in Amendment 46.

In attempting to achieve this alleged ideal, the proponents of the Amendment simplify the multifaceted and complicated racial issues with the blatantly absurd assumption that the American playing field is level for everyone regardless of their race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.

Really? It the playing field really level? Is a smart and talented Hispanic kid from San Luis on a level playing field with a smart and talented white kid from Cherry Hills Village? Is the smart and talented African-American kid raised in project housing on a level playing field with the smart and talented Asian-American kid from Boulder High School? Is the kid from South Park High School on par with the kid from Denver Kent School?

The assumption that everything is hunky-dory and that all Coloradoans have equal footing would be to believe that racism and bigotry in and out of higher education has been eradicated; it would be to assume that the 66 percent white majority in America that controls between 80 and 90-plus percent of everything is willing to concede equal rights to people of color struggling for a modicum of respect and justice. Eliminating affirmative action and similar programs that help level the playing field for minorities and women is a knee-jerk solution fostered by racists and bigots.

The real hope for a level playing field lies not with an insidious, racist-driven amendment disguised as a simple solution to a complex problem, but with the Millennial Generation that has already shown itself to be racially color-blind and, in fact, indifferent to the absurdity of white superiority. Colorado doesn't need to incorporate veiled bigotry into its constitution.

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GI Bill for the 21st Century: A Tribute that's Little Enough

While Memorial Day marks the symbolic beginning of summer, its origin as Decoration Day - a day to honor those who have fallen in America's service - is an appropriate time to reflect on the sacrifices so many are making and so many more have made and the debt our nation owes to those who survive the crucible of war.

Congress is now poised to pass a new GI Bill for the 21st Century. It provides Iraq and Afghanistan veterans four-year college scholarships similar to the educational benefits available to veterans after World War II and through the Vietnam era.

When the Second World War ended and weary young Americans, old before their time, flooded home, college and university campuses across the country boomed with young men, many of them recently married and all of them eager to recapture their lives. This sudden influx of battle-hardened veterans spawned a housing boom, a baby boom and an unprecedented boom in higher education.

Armed with college degrees and newly acquired career and technical skills, those veterans built new businesses and industries, expanded the American middle class as never before and created decades of prosperity.

That original GI Bill of 1944 returned to the American economy $7 for every $1 spent to support it. Yet, only the most jaded and cynical among us would point to the economic benefit alone as a reason to provide assistance to our veterans. The original GI Bill was little enough to offer to our veterans who returned from the last global conflict.

And the GI Bill for the 21st Century is little enough to give the young women and men who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regardless of what side a person takes in the ongoing conflicts, the men and women in harm's way - mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives - deserve an expression of gratitude from their country. Many of the troops have faced two or three tours already and may face more before hostilities end. There have been 4,500 killed in Iraq and Afghanistan already and another 14,500-plus wounded.

There is nothing to do for the dead beyond honoring their memory; however, for the living a new GI Bill that will provide them with four years of college and offering each of them something far beyond money and material things. An education can set them on new paths and in new directions, helping them find or recapture a passion, a dream, a future. 

There is no real consensus on the official beginning of Memorial Day. In May 1966, President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Waterloo N.Y. as its birthplace. Yet, there is considerable evidence that it was born at the end of the Civil War when Southern women began decorating the graves of the Confederate dead. Whatever its true origin, Memorial Day is a day to remember our fallen warriors and to thank the returning veterans.

In recent years, a patriotic litmus test has been the often repeated "support our troops" refrain. Well, the GI Bill for the 21st Century is a tangible, very real means to support them. Only the most jaded, cynical or mean-spirited would deny such a paltry offering to those who have, without question, risked so much.

Doug Hawk
Editor
Colorado Higher Ed News
editor@ColoradoHigherEdNews.com

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Cowardice Masquerading as Activism

Paul Schauer, Regent for the University of Colorado, has unexpectedly dropped out of the race for a second term after an appalling flier was circulated in Aurora and Centennial by Coloradoans for Reform in Higher Education. While Schauer denied that the flier had anything to do with his decision, it had to sting that he was compared to disgraced former-CU faculty member Ward Churchill.

The flier suggested that Schauer and Churchill share a commonality: "They both take issue with Western Civilization."

Really? Are we really supposed to