A longtime friend and University of British Columbia (UBC) employee drew my attention to this story: Santa Ono, ex-University of Michigan president, rejected for University of Florida job. In the not too distant past, Ono was the president of the UBC.
The legacy media is, of course, trying to spin this as an anti-DEI backlash. Here’s another perspective: How about people with true, consistent values are fed up with milquetoast folks who have no real values and just say what is convenient at the moment?
In recent weeks, UK PM Keir Starmer has beclowned himself over the issue of immigration and California Governor has done the same about men participating in women’s sports. Simply put, you can’t hold a particular set of views for years, then suddenly turn on a dime, and expect people to trust you any longer.
I personally had some correspondence with Santa Ono 8 years ago. My alma mater, UBC, was looking for a donation. After receiving a bulk email from him, I responded, asking him how I could possibly donate to a university that didn’t believe in free speech. To my great surprise, he responded, saying that UBC planned to follow the Free Expression policy of the University of Chicago. As this recent lawsuit against UBC shows, Free Speech/Expression is the furthest thing from reality at UBC.
Here’s what others are saying about Ono’s rejection at the University of Florida.
I’m old enough to have lived through the Bakke lawsuit and SCOTUS ruling … AGAINST … affirmative action (sorry Wikipedia, you’re misusing the term “affirmative action”)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_University_of_California_v._Bakke
The court did NOT uphold affirmative action, but ruled “race” can be considered along with any other of potentially millions of unique characteristics of an applicant. However, the schools may NOT set numerical racial quotas. So, Universities flaunted the SCOTUS decision by employing any number of work-arounds in order to remake college student bodies.
For example; one of my best friends, with the surname Lopez, was accepted to every single undergraduate, post-graduate, and law school he applied to. Every. Single. One. Mr. Lopez was a very bright guy and always in the top of the class … but … he was as lily white as your average Finlander. His family was Spanish … as in Spain. But every admissions dept. saw his surname and thought … hey a Mexican we can admit! He helps our heeespanick quota, err … unique characteristic. He was never, ever, turned down.
I, too, remember Bakke’s years long fight with multiple universities. Way back when Northwestern University sanctioned FBO. FBO or For Blacks Only had their own segregated space in dorm dining rooms but there was no For Jews Only, For Whites Only equivalents. Remedial English, remedial math courses and FBO – universities have been playing social justice warriors for at least 5+ decades.
Maybe he should learn to code.