Opinion: Column
Universities should stand for themselves, students
Looking for a print version?
Simply use your browser’s ‘Print’ command and a printer-friendly document will be generated automatically.
Also by Eric Schmidt:
- 'Hook-up generation' immoral; AXE not helping (October 13, 2009)
- Love 'em or hate 'em, SLAC spot-on about UW apparel (October 6, 2009)
- Alcoholics at UW need support, AA (September 30, 2009)
- Realignment coming with Young Americans for Liberty (September 23, 2009)
- Football commitment to carbon neutrality laudable (September 16, 2009)
Sharing tools:
E-mail this article:
Let’s engage in some political theory this Wednesday morning, shall we? And let me put it as plainly as possible: When the interests of its students and intellectual principles are at stake, a university — even a public university — has a responsibility to break the law.
Whoa.
It’s probably the aspiring academic in me, but I have long been hopeful that the public university would break away from its governmental and legal obligations and act like an independent entity with nearly unmatched leverage.
This impulse is an essentially anarchistic one, but it relates back to an ironic observation: In the world of political theory, the strengthening of institutional relationships can sometimes make them break apart. Thus, it might be that the more resources and support the state Legislature invests in the University of Wisconsin, the more leverage we gain to deny thy father and refuse thy name, as the fellow said.
Last spring I argued that as the chief intellectual actor in a radius of several hundred miles, the University of Wisconsin had a normative responsibility to provide women their constitutional right to abortion. It would have this responsibility even if Roe v. Wade were overturned and even if abortion were illegal in this state — especially in this circumstance, indeed, since if the university does not properly interpret women’s rights, then who will?
It is also clear to me that UW and other public universities should not be responsible to Supreme Court precedent on affirmative action: If administrators recognize campus diversity is important for many complex sociological reasons — especially in our medical and law schools — we should ignore the Supreme Court, set sensible quotas for minority admissions and dare President Obama to send federal troops to prevent this action. (Any bets that would happen?)
As Tope Awe was being swiftly deported by authorities, the university should have done more to secure her return to classes — up to and until an indefinite shutdown of the university and an apocalyptic game of chicken with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That’s a university I would have been proud of. (In less cordial terms: You want us to continue being the Midwest’s premier research university? You want us to keep doing research to cure cancer and AIDS? Give us our fucking student back.)
Similarly, my reasons for signing an Editorial Board statement last spring advocating for direct attorney representation at student misconduct hearings were more radical than my colleagues’: the UW System Board of Regents has a responsibility to interpret the Constitution through its own intellectual lens, with or without supporting court precedent. It has a responsibility to do what it needs to do as an institution for intellectual and cultural development. Its allegiances should be ultimately to its principles, however inconvenient or illegal those principles are.
Somehow I feel this column is making me no friends, either among the state legislators who insist upon their authority over the University of Wisconsin or among the UW administrators whose daily routine involves a titanic effort to preserve this balance of forces. But the emergence of the university as an extra-legal independent actor was adumbrated by Gov. Jim Doyle’s decision to fund in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants — a move supported by the majority of UW administrators.
The UW System is not breaking federal law here, per se, but they know there are harsh consequences a less progressive federal government could impose on the university for this decision. We could now theoretically be forced to offer in-state tuition to everyone. That would be a quick way to make the university’s operating budget unsustainable, wouldn’t it?
I could be wrong, but I suspect the relative friendliness of the Obama administration to the complexities of the immigration debate are not the only reason for this action. This is a decision that could stand if Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin were running the country, because the scientific contributions of the University of Wisconsin vitiate any claims the federal government might have over our autonomy on this issue. Gov. Doyle knows that and the UW System Board of Regents knows that. We hold more keys than we know — and indeed, a university with balls could have offered in-state tuition to illegal immigrants without the governor’s blessing and gotten away with it.
Certainly, I am proposing something more radical (and more academic) than this space can fill: that on many matters — not just immigration — the university should act autonomously. This would not be mere effrontery. It would be the extension of what our new tuition policy already hints at: that we are more powerful than we think and that our leverage likely far exceeds our wildest expectations. We should act like a state. For all practical purposes, we are one.
Now can we have Tope back, please?
Eric Schmidt (eschmidt@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in political science.
10 Comments | Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Herald Blogs
The Beat Goes On
Parrotheads gorge on Buffet’s ‘Buffet’
Muckrakers
End of the year ASM statement: Where is it?
Extra Points
Top Classified Ads (view all)
Place your classified ad online and have it show up here. Your ad will hit thousands of viewers a day!
DON'T READ ME! Too late. If you're reading this, guess how many other people are reading it. See... advertising in The Badger Herald does work!
IP hash: 6e424d20
Haha, Schmidt shaved!
IP hash: 3412785f
“the university should act autonomously.”
But first it would have to recognize the right of individuals to act autonomously. It would have to stop, for example, a) taking people’s property against their will, and b) forcing some individuals to pay for the education of other individuals.
IP hash: a3a3d8f7
Awesome!
IP hash: 0434e40c
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to consider the University’s obligations to intellectualism more important than its obligations to the law. But what happens when you actually have to deal with the consequences of breaking the law? You’re assuming that there won’t be any in the first place, because basically the UW is awesome.
It’s risky to get the University involved in even more shrewd politics han it already is, because it may interfere with our pursuit of intellectualism in the first place. You’re assuming that people with the power to apply consequences for our actions care as much about that pursuit as we do. I hate to quote Lee Corso here, but not so fast. There are plenty of federal officials who will punish this University if it crosses any lines.
In other words, how would it make you feel if part of your tuition was going towards the annual fines it must pay for breaking the law? Raging against the machine is great and all, but only if you’re willing to pay the price.
IP hash: 3412785f
“In other words, how would it make you feel if part of your tuition was going towards the annual fines it must pay for breaking the law?”
Or if part of your tuition was going to pay for other kid’s education instead of your own? Or if your parents are being forced to subsidize tuition for other kids even if you go to a private school?
IP hash: 0434e40c
Helping a little bit so that others might get an education isn’t a bad thing. On the other hand, if a University official decided to try being above the law, resulting in monetary loss for the UW, I would be upset.
You’re actually trying to equate a fine—a punitive damage—with helping someone? That’s pretty cruel.
IP hash: 3412785f
No, I’m saying forcing someone to pay for other people’s education is not charity - it is not helping someone, it is stealing.
Wealth redistribution is like saying: If I take you money, don’t complain, you’re just helping me and what’s wrong with that?
IP hash: f5f0c263
you’re kind of crazy.
IP hash: e9d447ad
well said.
IP hash: 885ebea7
I really feel that you are just projecting your own political opinions onto how you think the University would act.
For example “since if the university does not properly interpret women’s rights, then who will? “
In your article you make a scenario where RvW is overturned. In this scenario you then can’t say that women have a constutional right to abortion. But, since you feel that they should have a right, you think that the UW should act how you feel and and “properly” interpret women’s rights?
My real question is why did you choose a University to project your above-the-law fantasy onto? Why not any other instutions (church, grade schools, police departments)? Is it becuase the UW is already the one currently closest aligned to your goals?