The Governor Has a Choice

An recent days, readers of The New York Sun have learned of the inexplicable: Governor George Pataki apparently is reluctant to renominate Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld to CUNY’s Board of Trustees. Normally, when chief executives come to the end of their terms, they begin thinking about their legacy. If so, Mr. Wiesenfeld’s reappointment is a no-brainer for the governor.Since joining the board, Mr. Wiesenfeld has been a key public voice on no fewer than four major initiatives vital to CUNY’s renaissance. He supported the decision to end remediation in the senior colleges — thereby helping to restore value to degrees from those institutions. He backed Chancellor Matthew Goldstein’s decision to establish the CUNY Honors College — a spectacular success now, but one denounced as “elitist” by critics at the time. He enthusiastically endorsed the CUNY Compact, the Chancellor’s innovative policy to boost fundraising and modestly raise tuition so as to leverage more state aid. And he has consistently spoken out on behalf of raising personnel and curricular standards around the system.But Mr. Wiesenfeld has made his enemies, too, most notably CUNY’s faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress. After the World Trade Center attacks, the union organized a series of “teach-ins” around CUNY. At City College, speaker after speaker blamed the United States for the attacks. At Brooklyn College, the PSC organized a gathering with no known supporters of U.S. or Israeli policy in the Middle East. Mr. Wiesenfeld spoke out forcefully against these intellectually dubious undertakings, assuring the public that the PSC did not represent CUNY’s values. He has regularly, and publicly, chastised the efforts of the PSC’s leadership to undermine the chancellor by restoring the failed open admissions and remediation policies of the 1970s and 1980s. And he has condemned the often thuggish tactics, such as verbally disrupting Board of Trustees meetings and picketing outside the Chancellor’s private residence, that the PSC used in its recent contract campaign.It’s a mystery why Mr. Pataki would want to hand the PSC a victory by not renominating Mr. Wiesenfeld. The governor, some think, has national ambitions. Allying himself with the PSC is not going to win him favor with people of good faith outside of New York. The PSC is, after all, the very same union that gave faculty members’ dues to Lori Berenson, who was convicted of aiding the Marxist Shining Path in Peru. PSC moneys also went to the legal defense fund of Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who recently pled guilty to aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.The PSC’s latest radical initiative? On June 28, union members rallied in front of the Mexican consulate on behalf of striking teachers in Oaxaca. The Oaxaca teachers’ union is hardly a mainstream organization. It sought to influence the result of the recent Mexican presidential election by threatening to block polling places around the state — with the implication that only voters favorable to nationalist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would be allowed to pass through. Under pressure of a public backlash, the Mexican strikers announced that “the expected radical measures which were to be taken by the striking teachers . . . such as the highway blockades, the re-occupation of the state government building and the pillaging of department stores, will be suspended.”So, the governor has a choice. He can side with a union that has backed Lori Berenson, Sami Al-Arian, and Mexican teachers who promise to pillage department stores. Or he can side with a trustee who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to advocate improving standards at CUNY. That’s not a hard choice. Pataki should reappoint Mr. Wiesenfeld.Mr. Johnson is a professor of history at Brooklyn College.

The Governor Has a Choice

The Governor Has a Choice

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