Ultraliberal California Governor Gavin Newsom believes the scandal involving corruption and fraud in elite college admissions should extend to rich people who buy the naming rights to university buildings through large donations to the schools themselves.
Newsom in a recent interview with Buzzfeed went so far as to call it “legal bribery.”
“It’s a deeper issue than the bribery and holding these people to account, which they should be. It goes to the nature, again, of wealth,” said Newsom. “What about the legal bribery that exists in higher education? Do you think, seriously, does anyone think someone who writes a $100-million check to a university doesn’t have a cellphone of someone who’s influential?”
“Want to connect the dots on that person and how many letters of recommendation they’ve made in their life and how often those recommendations went to the top of the pile?” he continued. “That’s apparently O.K., because, quote and quote, we’re all benefited by that library.”
Newsom added that he’s “not discouraging” people to donate to schools, “but there’s something deeper here.”
He even slammed his fellow board members on the University of California (UC) Board of Regents as people who likely were hired “not because of their extraordinary talent” but for their “fundraising talent.”
Gov. Newsom is clearly having a hard time in his role as a new poll has revealed that Californians overwhelmingly oppose his policies including a proposed tax on drinking water and permanently suspending the death penalty. Thankfully he didn’t go so far as to propose a policy to prosecute the wealthy for donating money to schools, though he did say the “issue” requires “deeper” reflection and warrants “national debate.”