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Out d’Coup for Friday, April 10, 2020

  Out d’Coup | Bernie’s Out; Left Way Forward; COVID-19 Impacts; Religious Right is a Death Cult; Mensch Not a Mensch; K-12 Stays Closed; PA Budget Crisis; Netflix’s Space Force; Free Will, Sean’s Toys

Bernie Sanders officially drops out of the presidential race, leaving Joe Biden as the presumptive nominee. It’s worth noting how much the Bernie Sanders campaignhas fundamentally shifted the…

The unanimous vote ignored the pleas of students who attended the meeting to speak against the increase. According to Alexis Davis, a Kutztown University student who spoke at the meeting, she made the case that “there was little transparency regarding the fee prior to our Student Government Board President reading the Student Government Board’s resolution at the last meeting.” She indicated that she and other students wanted more details and greater transparency before the fee would be imposed. 

Other students, Davis reported, “spoke to the fact that this fee was unfair, that the money to reduce the deficit should not come out of students’ pockets, that this fee is exploitative.” Davis said that she and other students, “worry of having large loans to pay back already and that the addition of this fee would not be a benefit.”

Davis said that members of the Council of Trustees did not respond to any of their comments specifically. “There was not any direct response,” Davis explained, “but each student was thanked for their comments. After we all were done speaking, they addressed us as a collective saying that our concerns would be taken to mind.” While students’ comments may have been taken in mind in the most abstract sense, it did little to slow down their decision to pass the fees. 

“I was infuriated because I felt like our concerns were just brushed off and dismissed,” Davis told Raging Chicken Press. “Immediately after the vote was taken and the fee was passed, the other students at the meeting and I got up and left.” 

Alexis Davis is a member of the Kutztown University chapter of the PA Student Power Network, an organization that is pushing for free college tuition at all the Pennsylvania state-owned universities.  The Council of Trustees action “makes the push for affordable college that much more relevant,” Davis said.  “For full-time KU students, the fee is an additional $488 per school year. Part-time students will be required to pay $20.33 per credit towards this fee.” 

Davis said that she was certainly not alone in her anger. “I spoke with other students who left at the same time I did, and we all shared the same sentiment of shock at what just happened. None of us felt that we were listened to.” 

As Pennsylvania state legislators meet today to question the RAND Corporation study about how to destroy the current form of PASSHE and distance it from its mission to provide access to affordable, high-quality education to all Pennsylvania residents, efforts to organize students to push back against increases in costs and to demand free tuition for all becomes all the more urgent. 

Rather than leaving Davis feeling cynical about her efforts to influence the Council of Trustees decision, she left more determined than ever. She said, “this is not the last time the KU Council of Trustees will be hearing my name.

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Constitutional Stakes of Colleen Bradley’s Supreme Court Petition: Video | Part 2

Earlier this month, we released our exclusive interview with Colleen Bradley, the former Director of Budget and Financial Planning at West Chester University. Bradley was fired after she exposed how WCU – and Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education universities more broadly – were purposely misrepresenting their budgets to legislators, faculty, students, and the public.  Last week, I…

First Amendment Rights at Work in Peril: PA Whistleblower Looks to U.S. Supreme Court

The last thing Colleen Bradley thought she would be doing at this point in her life was preparing a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. But that’s exactly what she’s doing and there is a lot at stake. If the U.S. Supreme Court allows the Third Circuit Court ruling in her case to stand, First Amendment rights at work and whistleblower protections for nearly 30 million public employees…

Exposing Budget Fraud at PASSHE Universities | Colleen Bradley tells her story

In 2014, Colleen Bradley was fired from her job as the Director of Budget and Financial Planning at West Chester University after she exposed how the WCU and Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education universities more broadly were purposely misrepresenting their budgets to legislators, faculty, students, and the public. People outside small groups of administrators were told “the sky is…

PASSHE Budget Games Exposed – Again: “Bunsis Report” Pushes Back Against Austerity

A new report released to Kutztown University faculty Tuesday evening, promises to cause headaches for PASSHE administrators and university presidents who have used a narrative about a State System “budget crisis” to jack up tuition rates, gut faculty, and close academic programs. A group of Kutztown University faculty members pooled their own resources to commission Howard Bunsis, a Professor of…

It’s Time the Commonwealth Foundation Become a Household Name in PA

There are a few boogeymen out there that get tons of attention from the Democratic Party, progressives, and their allies for the grip they hold on Republican politics. Across the country and throughout Pennsylvania, the names of the Koch brothers and Grover Norquist have been raised in anger to show the undue influence of billionaire interests that filter through Republican politicians and…