Budget Cuts Hammer University of California Star Faculty Retention

I thought about this recently, having traveled to UCLA for both the Noam Chomsky and David Horowitz events, not to mention my coverage of Students for Justice in Palestine.

The Westwood campus is awesome. Too much construction, but it's a great feeling being on a research campus again. It feels so promising. And I was a little surprised at the vitality, since there's been so much talk of decline at the UC system. Anyway, certainly things aren't going as well as state leaders would like, and that's keeping in mind that UC is more insulated from budget crises than both Cal State and the community colleges. But this report at Los Angeles Times shows a real drag on maintaining quality and prestige. See: "UC fears talent loss to deeper pockets: The departure of three star scientists from UC San Diego has officials worried about a possible brain drain tied to budget cuts."

Read the whole thing at the link. I found fascinating the salaries of the three UCSD scholars lured away to Rice Univerity:

[Jose] Onuchic, who is co-director of UC San Diego's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, said he was drawn to Rice mainly for the research funds and new building, along with the chance to work with cancer experts in Houston. "The opportunities were spectacular," said Onuchic, whose research focuses on protein movement and chemical reactions in gene networks. His UC salary, including summer grants, is $265,000; he and his colleagues said Rice would give them 40% increases.

The three scientists are expected to take with them much of their National Science Foundation grant, which has paid $6.6 million since 2008 and is expected to provide several million more over the next two years. At Rice, their funding will also include a $10-million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, created with a $3-billion state bond issue approved by voters in 2007.

[Herbert] Levine, 55, who has been at UC San Diego for 25 years and earns $187,000 a year, said Rice's new and larger lab space and extra administrative support was too good to turn down. Another factor is that Rice, which has a fifth of UC San Diego's 27,417 students, is much less bureaucratic, he added.

[Peter] Wolynes, 58, is a 10-year veteran of UC San Diego and earns $330,000 a year. Moving together keeps the team intact — it's a "Three Musketeers situation," he said — and the Texas cancer money will mean less hustling for grants. He still greatly admires UC, he said, but believes its "period of expansion" may be over.

These are accomplished scholars, and well-compensated. And it's no surprise that they'd be able to make much more money elsewhere. There's a market for top academics. And public universities struggle to stay competitive in tough economic times.

'What Third World Women Want'

"According to First World Feminists," by Charlotte Allen, at Weekly Standard.

It's about an academic conference, "Driving Change, Shaping Lives: Gender in the Developing World." I love this part, especially the "Battle of the Filipina Hostesses":

The first speaker was Valerie M. Hudson, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, leading off a panel titled “Shifting Populations.” Hudson delivered a genuine population-shift shocker: In China and India, which between them account for about 40 percent of the world’s 7 billion people, women, who in the West slightly outnumber men because they tend to live longer, are outnumbered by the male sex to the tune of 33 million in China and 28 million in India. The reason? As Hudson explained, it was the female-lethal combination of sex-selection abortion following the advent of fetal ultrasound during the 1980s and China’s longtime one-child policy, which has resulted in widespread female infanticide along with many forced abortions. As she rattled off disturbing statistics​—​120 boy babies for every 100 girl babies in China in 2005, and 121 for every 100 in India​—​Hudson pointed out that sex-selection abortion and female infanticide are illegal in both countries, but the laws on the books have failed to dent the cultural phenomenon of “son preference” in Asia, in which sons are valued because they’re expected to support elderly parents, whereas daughters often cost dowry money. “That’s 90 million missing women,” Hudson said.

In 2004 she and Andrea den Boer, a lecturer in politics and international affairs at the University of Kent, had published a book, Bare Branches, about the negative repercussions for a society, such as in China, that produces large numbers of surplus young men who cannot find wives and form families. “Those who don’t marry tend to have no skills and no education,” Hudson explained. “They are already at risk for violent behavior, since young men without stable social bonds tend to commit most violent crimes. They tend to be targets for military recruitment, and societies with surplus males tend to be marked by an aggressive foreign policy and ethnic groups pitted against each other.”

Maybe it was because abortion makes women’s studies people skittish, but Hudson’s ominous statistics​—​and indeed her entire presentation​—​were promptly forgotten, submerged in what might be called the Battle of the Filipina Hostesses. The combatants were Hudson’s two fellow panelists, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California and self-described former Filipina hostess, and Amy O’Neill Richard, a senior adviser in the State Department’s Office of Trafficking in Persons, a priority project of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. During the 1980s and 1990s tens of thousands of young women were imported into Japan by labor contractors from the chronically impoverished Philippines to sing, dance, flirt with, and coax drink purchases from stressed-out salarymen in bars and nightclubs​—​until a 2005 crackdown by the Japanese government reduced the hostesses’ numbers by 90 percent, from 80,000 in 2004 to 8,000 in 2006. Few of the Filipinas, it seemed, had any training as the professional entertainers that their visas said they were. The Japanese government maintained that most of them were actually prostitutes or near-prostitutes, pushed into long hours of dubious servitude by the contractors and the clubs, many of which had ties to yakuza mobsters. A spate of brutal murders of hostesses​—​along with some murders committed by hostesses of their pimps​—​fueled the drive to clamp down on the hostess business and send most of the women back to the Philippines.

Taking the podium after Hudson, Parreñas went on the warpath. She announced that she had no intention of abiding by the 10-minute presentation limit for panelists and then proceeded to read a fiery 20-minute paper that she titled “Migration as Indentured Mobility: The Moral Regulation of Migrant Women.” The paper blasted the hostess crackdown as part of “a U.S.-backed war” against “sex work” fueled by “moral imperialism and conservative values” (the U.S. government funds anti-trafficking programs in about 70 countries). In the crackdown the hostesses were “stripped of their livelihood,” Parreñas lamented. “They go to Japan of their own volition​—​they’re not drugged or forced to go. They find it empowering to be a hostess.” Parreñas’s theory was that “there are multiple moralities in society,” and that some Filipinas’ moral codes happened to permit “paid sex with the men they call their boyfriends.” The problem, as Parreñas saw it, was that many Japanese clubs tended to have a different “moral culture” from that of the hostesses who worked there, but the hostesses couldn’t quit until their indentures were up. Nonetheless, Parreñas insisted, “most of them resent the United States, and they resent being rescued” from the hostess life by being kicked out of Japan. Her solution to the hostess problem: open immigration in the West for developing-world sex workers so they could get jobs in, say, the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal.

Parreñas proved to be a tough act to follow. Richard, the human-trafficking expert from the State Department, seemed dumbfounded. “I think America is a wonderful country,” she said. She rattled off some information about the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 2000, along with some alarming-sounding numbers: 70 percent of the estimated 12 to 27 million human-trafficking victims in the world these days are women and girls, most of whom end up in bondage, often sexual bondage, in East Asia and the Middle East. Parreñas was having none of that. “It’s quite tricky to lump all trafficked people together,” she sniffed. “Most migrant workers are domestic workers, and many countries, including the United States, don’t even count domestic work as an occupation.” Nor did Parreñas have any positive words for Hudson and her bare-branches research. “Did you interview any of those single men you describe as psychopathic and poor?” Parreñas demanded of Hudson. “Did they see themselves as unmarriageable?”

'Why is David Epstein Still a Columbia University Professor After Incest Plea?'

Good question.

A Columbia Professor of POLITICAL SCIENCE?

See The Other McCain for the reply.

Epstein's homepage is here.

Back to Teaching at California State Universities

From Naomi Schaefer Riley, at Los Angeles Times, "Cal State system: It's time to get back to teaching."

There's no quick quote to capture the essence here. Full-time faculty don't do much teaching, it turns out, or at least not "the bulk" of it. Mostly adjuncts nowadays. It's weird, though, because I had the best professors at Fresno State. I think I had one grad student TA, in math. And the professor referred all questions to him, and while the TA was a good guy, proficient, etc., that's probably not the best example of cutting-edge teaching. The Political Science Department was great though. So much better than the University of California, in terms of access to the professors. I mentioned previously that the more hands on attention professors provide, the more they'll help their students. That's what happening in my classes, and I still can't do enough to overcome the skills deficits kids bring to college. So yeah, focus on teaching at Cal State. (And check that link: Schaefer Riley notes that Cal State's at risk of closing ten campuses and turning away 100,000 students --- seems unreal.)

David Protess of the Innocence Project Now Defends Himself

Read this piece, at New York Times, "A Watchdog Professor, Now Defending Himself." (At Memeorandum.)

A key passage:

It is often said that academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low, but in the matter of Mr. Protess and the wrongly convicted men he helped to free, the stakes could not have been higher.

I know something about academic politics and high stakes. A few days back I mentioned that I'd have a report on some of the bloggers at Lawyers, Guns and Money, and not Dave Brockington (about which, here). I'm still waiting, because attorneys are involved, but this is going to be blockbuster when I can write about it.

Anyway, I don't know anything about David Protess, but I can see that he developed some powerful enemies in his work, people who want to destroy him. Again, I know the feeling, although I haven't gotten anyone released from death row. But some people have been extremely threatened by the things that I write here, and allegations and high-level threats have been made. I'm not kidding when I say high level. Seriously. Readers are going to be blown away when this comes out.

Stay tuned.

Bush White House Sought CIA Probe for 'Damaging Personal Information' on Leftist Professor Juan Cole?

Wow.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Honestly, though, arrest him if there's evidence of aiding and abetting terrorism. But don't just smear the guy using the CIA. Sounds like something from the Nixon years.

At New York Times, "Ex-Spy Alleges Bush White House Sought to Discredit Critic":

WASHINGTON — A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him.

Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.

In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted “to get” Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.

It is not clear whether the White House received any damaging material about Professor Cole or whether the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies ever provided any information or spied on him. Mr. Carle said that a memorandum written by his supervisor included derogatory details about Professor Cole, but that it may have been deleted before reaching the White House. Mr. Carle also said he did not know the origins of that information or who at the White House had requested it.

Intelligence officials disputed Mr. Carle’s account, saying that White House officials did ask about Professor Cole in 2006, but only to find out why he had been invited to C.I.A.-sponsored conferences on the Middle East. The officials said that the White House did not ask for sensitive personal information, and that the agency did not provide it.

“We’ve thoroughly researched our records, and any allegation that the C.I.A. provided private or derogatory information on Professor Cole to anyone is simply wrong,” said George Little, an agency spokesman.

More at that link at top.

And what the heck? Check over at Juan Cole's, the freak: "Ret’d. CIA Official Alleges Bush White House Used Agency to “Get” Cole," and "Cole on Goodman & CIA Surveillance."

And, "Repeal the PATRIOT Act is the Lesson of Bush White House Spying."

Nope, not going that far. Patriot Act does not authorize CIA spying domestically. It simply allows coordination of intelligence gathering activities. Longstanding bureaucratic norms would still drive domestic surveillance operations, and frankly, the legacy of the 1960s and 1970s still contributes to a culture of legal safeguards that obviously make cases of spying --- like that alleged against Professor Juan Cole --- beyond the pale. Bust him if he's a treasonous dirtbag. Otherwise, let him spew his bilious hatred. No doubt he's earned some enemies on that basis alone.

Conservative Law Professor Denied Emeritus Status at University of Montana

It's hard out there for the good ones.

At TaxProf Blog, "Conservative Law Prof Decries Faculty's 'Petty' Decision to Deny Emeritus Status." ( via Volokh).

More at the Missoulian, "Former UM law professor Natelson denied emeritus status by faculty."

Former University of Montana law professor and outspoken conservative Rob Natelson has been denied his request for professor emeritus status, a decision he called "petty" and "inexplicable."

Natelson, who retired in May 2010 after serving 23 years as a professor in the law school to take a job as a senior fellow with the Independence Institute, was informed upon his return to Montana in June that the law school faculty had voted against granting the constitutional scholar emeritus status.

Emeritus status is granted to a retiring professor whose colleagues feel he or she is worthy of the academic recognition and prestige based on the faculty member's research, service and instruction during his teaching tenure.

"Emeritus status for retirees is pretty routine and almost always given," Natelson said. "I find the whole thing very peculiar. Even though there's a history here, this thing seems so petty, so small."

Natelson was apparently one the most published professors on the faculty. Denial of emeritus status was clearly driven by ideological hatred. Progressives suck.

Yale Kills Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism

From Abby Wisse Schachter, at New York Post, "Yale's Gift to Anti-Semitism":

Yale University last week killed the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplin ary Study of Antisemitism -- the only program of its kind in the country, an academically stellar one-stop anti-Semitism research shop. Worse, it almost certainly did so because YIISA refused to ignore the most virulent, genocidal and common form of Jew-hatred today: Muslim anti-Semitism.

Citing an official review by a faculty committee that it refuses to identify, Yale will shut down the program at the end of next month. The university's top flack, Director of Strategic Communications Charles "Robin" Hogen, wrote an e-mail claiming that YIISA had failed a key test: It was supposed to "serve the research and teaching interests of some significant group of Yale faculty and . . . be sustained by the creative energy of a critical mass of Yale faculty."

Funny, last year, at YIISA's hugely successful inaugural conference on global anti-Semitism, Yale Deputy Provost Frances Rosenbluth said just the opposite, noting that YIISA was "guided by an outstanding group of scholars from all over the university representing many different disciplines," including professors of history, sociology, comparative languages, psychiatry, economics and political science. Actually, Hogen's e-mail itself contradicts Yale's stated excuse: He notes that "the steering committee did express continued support for the faculty reading group on anti-Semitism." Plus, "institutional support will remain for the group of faculty who wish to continue their scholarly exploration of this important subject."
Which is it -- no faculty interested in studying anti-Semitism, or lots of faculty interest in studying anti-Semitism?

Well, depends on what kind of anti-Semitism. Can't be studying the Islamic kind, now can we?