Cal Poly appears to be working hard to eliminate local discussion.
After all, Cal Poly is the 800 pound Gorilla in San Luis Obispo County. There’s not a facet of our community that they don’t swing their weight around…. sometimes rather ruthlessly.
Ask any local attorney if they will represent anyone with a grievance or complaint against Cal Poly and they will decline and candidly tell you that they wish to continue practicing. Many folks — like my wife — just take their cases out of county and win at the Federal level.
That says a lot.
Even faculty have come to know it is ‘my way or the highway’ with Cal Poly’s administration.
So it’s also not surprising that local media soft pedaled Cal Poly’s intended arrangement with the government of Saudi Arabia. There are many examples of our local media going against national opinion in order to protect Cal Poly’s sensibilities. Anyone remember how Cal Poly harassed Cal Poly student Steve Hinkle until he won in Federal court?
Few in the local media covered Steve Hinkle at the time… unless supporting the university perspective. By contrast, Cal Poly was ‘savaged’ in the national press. (more on Cal Poly today)
For those few who haven’t heard, Cal Poly wants to set up an engineering program to award Cal Poly degrees to Saudi citizens. The problems are obvious: the students are restricted to male only …and only the ‘right’ Cal Poly Faculty will be able to participate. Oh yes, there is this little problem of who Saudi Arabia is after all. Besides oil, isn’t their next leading export terrorists? — or do we call them ‘insurgents’?
Here’s a few ‘soft’ examples from the local Media:
Here’s the real story:
By the way, my blog “Cal Poly… training tomorrow’s terrorists?” practically stopped for a couple of days thanks to the demand…. even without Google. Isn’t the internet grand?
So… maybe we should ask Cal Poly’s controversial Dean of Engineering Mohammad Noori and President Warren Baker… how , again, is this really benefiting Cal Poly and where did this whacked out idea come from originally?
Roger Freberg
PS. by the way, Cal Poly says they are not breaking any ‘American Laws’, unfortunately, I have heard this before. (I think we have laws based on preventing business with those who discriminate?) It seems that we may need to find our own 2000 lb Gorilla to take on Cal Poly!
2/22 UPDATE:
InsideHigherEd.com – Read about how Cal Poly justifies their actions!
Judging from this post, you might like a new blog I’ve just seen called SLOcomment.com.