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Friday, February 04, 2005
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CONSEQUENCES
“The law of unintended consequences holds that almost all human actions have at least one unintended consequence. In other words, each cause has more than one effect including unforeseen effects,” it says here. So, for instance, the Florida State University chiropractic school dustup has had the unforeseen consequence of beginning to rid the university governing board of lobbyists: ‘[P]rompted by the debate raging over the future of a plan for a chiropractic school at Florida State University, [Florida Senate President Tom] Lee wants to keep lobbyists from serving on boards that govern the state's public universities -- including the boards of trustees at each school and the statewide Board of Governors. "We have 17.4 million Floridians," said Lee, R-Brandon. "We can't find 100 talented people who don't butter their bread with the Florida Legislature to serve on [these boards]? Give me a break." In the case of the universities, Lee wants to avoid the appearance of lobbyists being pressured by legislators to support programs such as the chiropractic school, funded last year by the Legislature at the insistence of FSU alum and then-Senate President Jim King …’ And indeed, one after another, the lobbyists on the board - especially those with the most brazen conflicts of interest - are resigning from it: ‘Just three days before a crucial vote on a chiropractic school for Florida State University, a member of the Board of Governors has resigned, citing Senate President Tom Lee's plans to ban lobbyists from certain boards and commissions.’ The so-far unkillable Ward Churchill story is also beginning to have unforeseen consequences, some of them less welcome than the removal of lobbyists from governing boards: ‘Regent Tom Lucero called for a process by which the administration can more easily discipline faculty. "I would suggest that the time has come for a revision to the policies that allow for other forms of adjudication that are not reliant on the faculty for determining subjectively the fate of one of their own," he said. "It naturally follows that I will be seeking justification for all departments and their academic value and merit to the university community." ' |