On his Instapundit blog, Professor Glenn Reynolds likes to remark that one reason why so many academics say they oppose capitalism is that higher education often works the way they believe capitalism does — the rich getting richer and all that. Here’s a great example.
Mark Yudof was the president of the University of California system. Last year, he retired and was replaced by Janet Napolitano. Over his long, well-compensated career, Yudof was paid loads of money and presumably has a gigantic retirement account in TIAA-CREF and/or other places. Nevertheless, the UC Board of Regents voted recently to give him nice stipend of $591,000 for his first post-presidency year.
That bothers former regent Velma Montoya, who expressed her dissatisfaction in this Sacramento Bee article. “The usual rationale for sabbatical pay for high-ranking college and university administrators is to provide college teachers who have temporarily left the classroom to service as administrators, with time to retool before returning to teaching,” she writes. That circumstance does not apply in Yudof’s case and for that reason, Montoya argues, it was inappropriate for the board to grant Yudof this big bonus.
The phrase “limousine liberals” comes to mind.