About 5 months ago I wrote about UCLA's having Angela Davis' picture on banners around campus, holding her up as an exemplar of what UCLA students should aspire to and how they should act. I didn't mince any words in that post and I'm not going to mince them now--Davis is a sickening human being. Yes, her ideas are "different", but that doesn't mean they hold any value for sane people. That the University of Massachusetts at Amherst will pay her as much money for one speech as I make in three months--well, they're sick, too:
Massachusetts taxpayers are questioning the speaking fee for activist communist Angela Davis to talk to students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst this month.What value can she possibly bring to university students? What redeeming qualities does this thing have to merit such money and feting?
MassLive.com reported on Tuesday that Davis is scheduled to deliver a talk titled “Sustaining Social Justice Movements and Intersectional Struggles” at the university’s Fine Arts Center March 30.
The announcement drew criticism from taxpayers online, who commented on Davis’ controversial past.
Davis was tried as a conspirator in the 1970 armed takeover of a Marin County, California courtroom in which four people died. Davis purchased the guns used in the tragic incident, and was on the run from the FBI for a time before she was eventually acquitted of aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder, according to Wikipedia.org.
Davis was a leader in the Communist Party USA in the 1960s and reportedly had close relations with the Black Panthers. She was fired from her teaching position at UCLA in 1970 for repeated references to cops as “pigs,” and other “inflammatory language,” according to media reports.
MassLive commenter seekthetruth posted that he didn’t appreciate the public university using tax dollars to finance Davis’ speaking engagement.
I'm glad there's someone in Massachusetts willing to challenge this.
Now, now. You've up until now been very consistent on letting people with different viewpoints speak on campus, and I don't want you to throw it away on this. Being exposed to different viewpoints is good … even if you vehemently disagree with the speaker. At Davis, I saw Kissinger -- whom many consider a war criminal, and it was magnificent. I saw Buckley and Milton Friedman wipe the floor with two liberal hacks in a debate -- andUCD is a liberal college. I saw Hunter s.Thompson, drug addled alcoholic anarchist … what did he contribute? Well, a new way of looking at things political. So, I have no problem here. And, I know about what you make per month, and -- it may suck that people like Angela Davis can command that kind of fee -- it is definitely not out of line for a speaker with name recognition, and they will probably recoup that much in ticket sales. Maybe that's a bad thing … but I know if I were there, I'd go hear her speak.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine why the taxpayer should pay such a person to speak. Let her expenses be covered by the group that sponsors her, not from student fees or taxpayer funds.
ReplyDeleteA fair point, but do you really want to micromanage a university where taxpayers vote every time a speaker is invited? I don't. And I don't know how it's done at this University, but at UCD speaker fees came out of student 'entertainment' fees,separate from tuition, (and replenished by money made through ticket sales) and who came to campus to was determined by a council of elected student representatives … who could be voted out if they weren't making good decisions.
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