Unqualified, But Not Disqualified: Napolitano for UC President?

By Hilary Van Hoose on July 17, 2013

On July 12th, a mass email from Chancellor Blumenthal’s office announced that the University of California Board of Regents will vote on whether or not to confirm Janet Napolitano as the next UC president on July 18th.

As with many of Napolitano’s career moves, this one comes straight out of left field because her experience and policies have virtually nothing to do with the job she was offered. So, what has being a lawyer and a politician got to do with running an educational institution? I imagine right about now, some of you are probably thinking, “Janet who?” Fair enough. In the email, Blumenthal’s justification for this nominee was that, “Napolitano will become the first woman to lead the UC system” and that “she has advocated for public education, university research, and educational opportunities for undocumented immigrants.” Sure, she’s female. That’s good for novelty value, but how true is the other part, on balance  and how does being an advocate qualify her to run a university system? In fact, does her life and/or career qualify her for this job in any way? Let’s find out.

A biographical article in The American Prospect (more of a love letter, really) and another on Biography‘s website outline her early life and career, beginning with growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her father was the dean of the University of New Mexico Medical School and a professor of anatomy (so, I guess her father is somewhat qualified for her job?) After attending Santa Clara University for undergrad (just as her father had) as a political science major, Napolitano’s father got her a job as an analyst for the Senate Budget Committee under New Mexican Republican senator Pete Domenici before she attended law school at the University of Virginia. From there, she got a job as a clerk for Judge Mary Schroeder of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and subsequently found a position at Lewis & Roca (Judge Schroeder’s former law firm), where she assisted in Anita Hill’s side of the Clarence Thomas harassment hearings.

With no experience whatsoever as a prosecutor on Napolitano’s record, and a failed attempt at a senate run, President Clinton appointed Napolitano as U.S. attorney for Arizona in 1993. She became the Arizona Attorney General in 1998. Her time in these jobs was not particularly progressive. She supported the Three Strikes law, argued to the Supreme Court (and lost, fortunately) that Arizona’s policy of the death penalty being issued by individual judges instead of juries should continue, and generally waffled about the issues of immigration and early marriage/polygamy prosecutions in Arizona. Nothing to do with education yet.

In 2002, Napolitano won a seat as the governor of Arizona. On the bright side, Biography says she turned a $1 billion state deficit into a $300 million surplus, supported all-day kindergarten programs, and ran on a pro-choice platform. On the iffy side, she probably became more famous for signing a poorly constructed law that, according to Politico, was meant to “[shut] down businesses that employ undocumented workers,” and for reportedly supporting the actions of Sherrif Joe Arpaio in re-purposing police officers as de facto immigration officers. This resulted in innumerable civil rights abuses (you likely remember the news stories about asking for citizenship papers during routine traffic stops) for which the NY Times states, “Ms. Napolitano has treated the sheriff gingerly through the years, even as reports of his abuses spread and as the sheriff defied any suggestion that there were limits to his power to harass Latino immigrants.”

A presidential appointment, by Obama this time, again despite her lack of experience (except in border control, I suppose), landed Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security in 2009 – where she has remained until now. The only notable news stories about her in this job that I found included random comments about H1N1 and hurricane preparedness, an article mentioning her role in instituting full-body airport scanners, an accusation of sexual misconduct/discrimination in the workplace against her, and a story describing her continued policies to “doggedly [expand] efforts to enlist local help in deportations, ignoring local communities’ objections about racial-profiling and worries about civil rights violations.”

So, what does any of this have to do with running a university?

According to a story in the LA Times, “UC officials believe [her experience] will help UC administer its federal energy and nuclear weapons labs” and other areas of research. What!?! So, they want us to major in war-mongering with a minor in outdated mindsets?

While it’s true that the original background of our current UC President, Mark G. Yudof, is also in law, his biography also includes many years as a professor, a university chancellor (even if it was in Texas), and as the president of a smaller university system (U of Minnesota) before he came to run the UC. By comparison, Napolitano’s background misses the mark by a long shot.

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