Our objections to
Napolitano’s presidency begin with the very process by which she was selected.
Her appointment was announced to the public suddenly at the end of a secretive,
closed-door process conducted by the UC Regents, themselves an undemocratically
selected body in no way bound to the will of the students, faculty, or workers
of the UC system, but riddled with conflicting private interests that include
the increasing militarization of UC campuses. It is hardly a coincidence
that the Regents’ search led them to the head of an organization that also
notoriously thrives on secrecy and militarism. This collaboration marks an
alarming acceleration of the degradation of democracy—not only at the
university level, as students and workers are deprived of the right to
meaningful participation in their schools’ governance, but also at the state
and national level, as the sovereignty and independence of education are explicitly
handed to agents of privatization and militarization.
Napolitano began her
experience with “public” education in her gubernatorial campaign to expand “oneof the nation’s largest…charter schools,” a movement that has left K-12 public
schools ravaged across the nation. This laid the neoliberal foundation for later
atrocities that made Arizona—and especially its school system—an infamous beacon
of racist inequality. As the head of DHS, Napolitano mainly interacted with
higher education only to channel ever more of its research and funding away
from the public good and towards surveillance and war. She has implied that she
will continue her regime of surveillance and privatization by hastening the
forcing of online education upon the UC.
Also, for a university
that claims to be pro-immigration, the choice of Napolitano is quite odd.
During her tenure as the top administrator of the Department of Homeland
Security, she oversaw the deportation of nearly 1.5 million immigrants—the most
in any American administration. Furthermore, she implemented policies that
further militarized the borders, and she expanded U.S. drone and surveillance
programs. In the face of these facts, the appointment of Napolitano is a
glaring contradiction to the UC’s supposed immigrant-friendly stance.
Napolitano has proven that she is no friend of immigrants, and if the UC really
were an advocate of immigrant rights, then the Regents would revoke her
appointment.
As a former Governor of
Arizona and Secretary of Homeland Security, Ms. Napolitano may be an expert at
running large organizations, but she does not have the depth of experience with
and investment in California public education that befits a leader of the UC
system. The UC was built and funded by the residents of California to
educate new generations of Californians. As students, we want the leader
of our universities to be a California educator, one who has dedicated a
lifetime to California pubic higher education and reflects our values. The
shocking choice of such an imperial privateer, whose salary will triple as she
becomes the head of a supposedly public institution, to lead a state school
ravaged by austerity is only conceivable when one considers that this choice
was first made by an executive search firm hired by the Regents behind closed
doors. The university community simply will not stand for it.
From the expansion
of funding for weapons development in Berkeley labs, to the distressing
investment in the Israeli occupation of Palestine, to the brutal suppression of
free speech and free assembly on our campuses, we see the very ideals that draw
distinguished students and faculty to the UC now fully undermined. Based upon
these and other concerns, we demand that the UC administration revoke Ms.
Napolitano's job offer and re-open the process of selecting the next President
of the University of California. We further demand that this process take place
as it should: visibly and democratically with input from all members of the
university community as we search for a fit president who will be accountable
to us.
Sincerely,
UC Students and Allies
in Dissent
