Still DREAMing of Entitlements

Although the U. S. Senate voted down the federal government’s latest attempt to expand government entitlements, academics remain just as adamantly for it.

On December 18, 2010, as we reported, the U. S. Senate voted down the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Last week, the radical caucus of the Modern Language Association (MLA) voted for it, as our correspondent on the scene at their Los Angeles confab—Allie Duzett—discovered.

“Whereas the U. S. Senate voted down the ‘Dream Act,’ which would have granted undocumented students in high schools legal status by attending college, thus depriving them of paths to citizenship and tuition assistance,” the resolution reads. “Be it resolved that the MLA support the efforts of undocumented students seeking paths to legal status.”

The resolution was introduced by Barbara Foley, an old favorite of Accuracy in Academia.  “The head of the MLA’s Red Caucus, Foley teaches American Literature as well as ‘the occasional course in Marxist theory’ at Rutgers,” Bethany Stotts wrote in a dispatch from the MLA in 2009, so beware if her Am Lit course shows up in a roster of Western Civilization courses.

Meanwhile, at the California State University’s Fresno branch, the dean of students, Paul Oliaro, pretty much admitted on camera to a self-described student activist that the school was so anxious to see Congress pass the DREAM Act that it overlooked the legal status, not to mention the legality of activities, of the student body president who was also lobbying for passage of the legislation.

The Golden State, in the meantime, is doing its level best to live up to the law whether it ever passes or not. “In November, the California Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the state law that permits ‘undocumented students’ to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities,” The Education Reporter reported in December 2010. “The law was challenged by 42 out-of-state students who contended that lower tuition should not be offered to illegal students while denied to some United States citizens.”

“Tuition for out-of-state students at University of California campuses is currently $33,181, while in-state students pay only $10,302.”  The Education Reporter is published by the Eagle Forum, founded by conservative attorney, author and activist Phyllis Schlafly.

“Kris Kobach, senior counsel with the Immigration Reform Law Institute, characterized the ruling as ‘superficial’ and charged the California Supreme Court with ‘bending over backwards to defeat the intent of Congress,’” The Education Reporter reported “His organization asserts that there are more than 25,000 illegal immigrants attending the state’s public universities and that the lower tuition rate costs the state more than $200 million annually.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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