In a story that’s come out today, Illinois State Senate President Emil Jones (a Democrat from Chicago) threatened the University of Illinois’ budget if the University’s Board of Trustees didn’t vote to remove Chief Illiniwek as the University’s official mascot.
Now, right from the start I’ll say that I’m conflicted over the issue of having the Chief as the mascot, but I do think that the threat to cut the budget of the University is over the line. I’m curious as to the opinions of the other dopers on this issue.
I’d be happier if the University of Illinios decided to switch to a less offensive mascot. Why do you think it’s over the line to encourage the University to make a change by making part of their public funding conditional on this action?
I guess it’s mainly because the University is ALREADY a state institution, and having another part of the state exerting its influence over it is a bit too much like bullying for me…it’s kinda like Congress cutting the budget for the Supreme Court because they didn’t like a particular interpretation of a law… (they haven’t done that, have they?). It’s like it’s not enough for this guy to be President of the State Senate, he really wants to be President of the U of I’s Board of Trustees too, and he’s willing to weild his power to get his way.
It’s not clear to me how one senator could have the power to influence the state appropriation. Is he even on the higher ed appropriation subcommittee?
I suspect this makes for a lovely sound bite, but in reality the ill-will he would generate by digging in his heels and trying to force his colleagues to reduce funding based on this issue would be politically very costly, I’d think.
Now, on the other hand, the Board of Trustees does not want to appear unresponsive to state concerns. Illinois public colleges don’t have loads of autonomy; witness the latest tuition-freeze-for-four-years thing they were subjected to. Just his voicing this opinion might be enough to get them moving on it, even if his threat is somewhat empty.
While the state legislature and the state universities are both state institutions they are vastly different. The legislature makes the laws of the state. They decide how much tax money to collect and how to spend it. If the university wants to keep their mascot they remain free to do so though it might cost them some funding. But the university doesn’t get to decide how much of the public’s money it will spend. That task is left to our representatives. Would you really want it the other way around?
I am unaware of any attempt by the Congress to limit the budget of the Supreme Court because of an unpopular court ruling. Federal judges are constitutionally protected from having their salaries lowered but their operating budgets could be cut.
2Sense is right; this is pretty much the usual state of affairs. Public universities have to answer to the State, who supply it with substantial (albeit an ever-smaller proportion of) operating revenue.
Consider Maryland, where the state has proposed forbidding any public U from increasing tuition mid-year; Illinois, where they’re making the Universities provide a 4-year price guarantee; California and other states where Universities are forbidden from considering race in admissions; Louisiana where tuition increases must be approved by legislators, etc etc etc. Michigan has some of the most constitutionally autonomous Universities in the country, and we’ve currently got a legislator wanting to review EVERY course offering in the catalog. No joke.
Well, I know that the University doesn’t set its own budget, and no, I wouldn’t want it to. I see a difference, however, between setting a budget in response to events (e.g. increase it to build more buildings, decrease it if enrollment is up and tuition covers more expenses) and threatening to cut it if a legislator doesn’t get his way.
Would it be ok, for instance, for a senator to threaten to cut funding if the University continues to offer an “Eastern Religions” class? I don’t think it would.
Emil Jones is the presiding officer of the Illinois Senate, and, as such, is in control of a majority of the Senators. As leader of the majority party, he’d have control over the flow of appropriations, and, for that matter, everything else.
Legislators represent people so its not a case of “I want this to change…” but rather “WE want this to change…” It’s the duty of the representatives to see that public funds are not mispent. If the people of Illinois don’t want their representatives to monkey with the funding of UofI they can get themselves some new representatives. I wouldn’t be inclined to vote for a senator who was so adamant over a religion class but I don’t live in Illinois so I don’t get a vote. If that is what the people of Illinois want then that’s what the senator should do. That’s how “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” is supposed to work.
Well, that pretty much makes it an open and shut case, to me. Sorry, it was discussed, you lost.
I seem to recall something about treaties made under durress…
After doing some brief study of the topic (I was not aware of many of the issues, as many people here seem to not be, and my knowledge on the subject is limited to going to Memorial Stadium and rooting for the Bears to beat the Illini) and of the figure of “Chief Illiniwek,” I’ve come to the same opinion as above.
Chief Illiniwek is nota caricature of Native Americans in a humorous and derogatory manner. He is a rather mundane representation in honor of the Illini. It may not be historically accurate and such, but it is hardly an attack on Indians, as a cartoonish depiction of a drunk dark skinned fellow with a big red nose and a bloody battleaxe would be (I’m looking at you, Atlanta). The entire basis for oposing this mascot seems to be, “um, well, he is Native American used for entertainment purposes.”
On that basis, every god damn mascot in the country is off limits. The Schooners are a HORRIBLE EVIL representation of a people. Hell, even Berkeley’s Golden Bears are an unfair representation of unrepresented bears. It isn’t like Oski is an accurate representation of a bear. Hell, if I rooted for a team named after Dave Chapelle, I’d be a horrible racist bastard?
I think the only mascot that is tame, dull, and stupid enough to not be offensive to anyone is Stanford’s lame ass tree. Oh, wait! That is a representation of the logging industry. That’s out the window, too.
What will my children cheer for? “Go Rocks! Beat those Inanimate Carbon Rods!”? I mean, are you serious? Don’t people have better ways to spend their time? This is protesting for protesting’s sake.
What, you want a historical representation? OK, fine. The Illini were WIPED OUT IN BLOODY WARS WITH OTHER NATIVE AMERICANS AND POLITICAL INFIGHTING.
Yay, lets honor history and remember them for that!
Oh, is that not politically correct enough? OK, how about we just settle for allowing some university to rally around their memory?
Um, yeah. I’ve lost track of the number of times some politico decides to stand up and make a speech, dragging the Lege into matters that don’t really come back to them. It’s the U of I’s mascot, not the Illinois Legislature’s, and whether they keep it or not ought to be up to the University, not whoever holds their purse strings.
It seems to me that both Zagadka and Duck Duck Goose have missed the point. No one here has argued that the state legislature should handle the decision of what will be the mascot of the university. Rather some, or at least me, have argued that the state legislature should handle the decision of how much money the university should receive from the state coffers. My answer to the OP is that the university is within its jurisdiction to choose a mascot and the legislature is within its jurisdiction to decide to what degree, or even whether, they wish to subsidize the school.
Well, that’s pretty much the implied threat in Michigan. In this case, one senator doesn’t like a humanities course that focuses on gay culture. He squawks about what “taxpayer dollars” are supporting, and may push to make the course-approvel thing part of the boilerplate. In that sense, funding would be, to some degree, contingent on our curriculum being approved.
But Michigan is also counter to your other statement–the legislature doesn’t have a darn thing to say about our budget. They decide our appropriations. Period. Four state schools also have some sort of public employee retirement fund they must pay into, and the legislature (I think) dictates how much they’ll pay, but otherwise universities have full say on what they spend their General Fund money on. There is also some oversight on what capital projects are undertaken, IF the universities get capital outlay money for it, but otherwise the state control over, say, what departments get what funding, what student services are paid for, how much faculty earn, etc etc etc, is slight.
Now, if Universities spend it foolishly, they’re likely to find legislators wanting more control. One state university spent a lot of money on the president’s house, and the ensuing scandal has the Senate adding boilerplate sections on how we all have to submit detailed plans before building executive mansions in the future. Not sure if the House will keep that in, but it’s possible.
I’m a proud alum of the UofI, and it doesn’t seem as though this issue will ever go away. Sen. Jones and the General Assembly have a responsibility to adequately fund the University, as per the constitution of the State of Illinois. It is inappropriate for him to threaten to withhold funding because of the Chief. The Board of Trustees of the UofI is a deliberative body with the authority to maintain or remove the Chief as mascot. This issue has been debated by the Board literally scores of times for a couple of decades now. Any attempt to remove the Chief by the board has either been voted down or, more frequently, tabled. It would seem to me that the Board of Trustees has exhaustively covered this issue. Emil Jones should keep his nose out of their business.
Of course, whether or not the Chief should be kept on as a mascot is a great debate in and of itself, deserving of its own thread. I just think that politicians like to latch on to topics like these, even when they have no authority to influence the decision. The recently deceased U.S. Senator Paul Simon spoke at my commencement ceremony. He went on at length about the racist stereotype of the Chief in his commencement speech. I found his comments to be inopportune and inappropriate on the day of my graduation.
If what you say about the state constitution is true then you have a point here. How about you cite your claim? Because if the constitution only says something vague like “The State shall provide for an efficient system of high quality public educational institutions and services” without specifically mandating the funding of the University of Illinios then your argument falls apart. If that’s the case then the allocation of state funding for the university remains the business of the state legislature as I’ve been saying all along.