UCLA Daily Bruin: "Raising Out-of-State Tuition Hurts LGBTQ+ Community"

 About 15 years ago when I was teaching part-time at UC Irvine, it was announced by the UC system that they would increase out-of-state admissions in the name of “revenue enhancement” since out-of-state tuitions were much higher than in-state. The losers? California tax-payers who would have liked to send their kids to UC rather than pay out-of-state tuition in some other state.

Now California lawmakers, in a rare act of doing the right thing, have taken action to reduce out-of-state admissions in favor of California residents, who, after all, support the state’s public universities with their taxes.

But that has not been well received by UCLA’s campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin. According to the below op-ed, this will have tragic consequences for the LGBTQ+ community in the other 49 states, who look to the Golden State as a refuge from all the hate directed their way.

https://dailybruin.com/2022/03/09/she-goes-by-they-them-reducing-out-of-state-admissions-to-the-uc-harms-lgbtq-students

Only a campus newspaper could make this connection.

Not that I am insensitive to gay people being mistreated. Quite the opposite. But is the “enlightened” state of California their only hope? I can just picture all the refugees trying to cross into California from Arizona and Nevada, kinda like scenes from the Ukrainian-Polish border, right?

This is the kind of fare you read on college campus newspapers. It’s really more the fault of the faculty and administrators because they are all instilling in their students the idea that everybody is a victim. A common thread I see in college papers is that the university must do more for this group and that group.

Sorry, LGBTQ+ community: On this one, I am not with you, but that does not make me a homophobe. So all you anonymous wise guys save your cards and letters.