Article written by Blade Walsh one can find him on Doug matsuoka's facebook or Blade Walsh facebook.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
The University of Hawaii is in a state of crisis. The crisis is not only linked to the Stevie Wonder concert debacle, but represents deep-seated, systemic failures of leadership in the administration and the UH Board of Regents that have been perpetuated for years. While the UH crisis adversely impacts the University’s students, faculty, and support staff, it also has a negative impact on the general citizenry that have millions of their tax dollars lost through administrative incompetence.
It is importantto note that the problems occurring at the University of Hawaii are a microcosm of similar crises in occurring in our larger society. These broader crises include the demise of honest, transparent, democratic practices that undermine justice in order to perpetuate the power and privileges of the 1% at the expense of the 99% in Hawaii and our society at-large.
This proposal represents an effort to mobilize interested individuals to participate in a mass protest that is being planned for October 2nd – at 10:30 am prior to the second meeting of the Hawaii Senate’s Committee on Accountability that will continue its focus on the administrative crisis at UH. The Senate Committee on Accountability will begin at 1:00 pm on the same day.
Several of us have begun meeting to outline the various components of the UH crisis, describe how they reflect similar crisis in our society in general, and outline recommendations to address these injustices and administrative injustices.
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Detailing the culture of corruption and abuse of power that undermines democracy at our university and society at-large.
1. The administration and Board of Regents at UH represents an oligarchy that controls the institutional systems of power that significantly affect institutional decision-making and formal and informal policies and procedures that are developed and implemented by 1% of the University community. This mirrors the reality in our broader society where the 1% of privileged persons control the systems of power to maximize their economic and social power at the expense of the rest of the 99%.
2. The 1% of the persons in high executive administrative positions at UH receive salaries that obscenely higher than the employees at the University who receive the lowest wages. This economic injustice mirrors the situation in the broader society that is reflected in the unprecedented wealth gap that continues to increase with a redistribution of wealth in the hands of the 1% that include UH Administrators and many members of the UH Board of Regents.
3. The UH Administration has strong ties with persons in Big Business and politicians in Hawaii. These ties result in a lack of transparency and the increasing corporatization of the only major public institution of higher education in Hawaii. This phenomenon is similar to increasing efforts to privatize and corporatize our nation’s public school system, prison system, health-care system, public transportation system, and social service systems in the United Sates.
4. The increasing corporatization of UH has resulted in more than a 100% increase in students’ tuition costs over the past 10 years. The decisions to implement these radical tuition increases by the UH Board of Regents leaves many poor and working poor persons out in the cold in terms of being able to apply and receive a degree from the only public university in Hawaii.
5. The ties that the UH Administration and Board of Regents have with Big Business and politicians results in:
[a] an intentional avoidance of promoting accurate education about the dangers of GMO foods,
[b] the continued use of GMO foods in all of the food services at the University, and
[c] accepting money from GMO businesses to support the University’s endeavors. A similar pattern exists in other universities whose ties with Big Agricultural Businesses result in the use of GMO foods on their campuses in spite of the increasing research findings that describe the toxic aspects of such foods that contribute to serious diseases among large numbers of people in our society.
6. The increasing militarization of the University of Hawaii is reflected in many ways. One of the most egregious ways involves the manner in which the UH Administration and the Board of Regents dismissed the unanimous disapproval by student, faculty, community, legislative, and Native Hawaiian groups/organizations for administrative plans to contract with the United States military (specifically with the Navy) to conduct "Classified" research. The research that UH has done as a result of as a result of securing such contracts has contributed to the military industrial complex in the United States by presenting new knowledge and products that can be used in warfare. The contracts for such “classified” research enables the university to keep secret the specifics of the research done for the military and exempts faculty members from implementing their right and responsibility to review such research through appropriate research oversight committees at the university. The increasing militarization of UH mirrors the rising level of militarization in other parts of Hawaii and our society in general.
7. The UH Administration and the Board of Regents have failed in fulfilling their responsibility to ensure that investigations of serious formal complaints about the ways that the University in general and the UH College of Education in particular allegedly perpetuates various forms of institutional racism that adversely impact the Native Hawaiians as well as people in other oppressed and marginalized groups in Hawaii
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