Following massive student protests against the privatization of public education, I have tried to stay informed on student conversations by following student-led blogs.
As I was skimming through an acquaintance’s blog, “Tenacious Transparency,” something caught my eye. A student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Maxwell Love, wrote, “I’m sick of the propaganda … Chancellor is using doublespeak.”
Love was specifically referencing University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chancellor Carolyn Martin’s sentiment that the university must “sever all ties with the state, to improve ties with the state,” while insisting that this is not privatizing education.
I then thought to myself, “This looks oddly familiar …”
Doublespeak was inspired by George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984,” to denote instances of euphemisms or reversing the meaning of words.
At a town hall on Dec. 7, ASU President Michael Crow was filled with doublespeak.
Crow first tried to make the claim that the “privatization” of ASU was a misnomer. According to the Oxford American dictionary, privatize means to “transfer (a business, industry, or service) from public to private ownership and control” and ironically uses “a plan for privatizing education” as an example.
The Arizona Higher Education Enterprise proposal introduced to the Arizona Board of Regents last September suggests diverting all public funding away from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. It would sustain the program through tuition hikes and private sources, according to The Arizona Republic. The report advocated eventually privatizing the entire residence hall program.
As per our definition for “privatize” — and definitions in other sources — whether Crow likes it or not, the proposals for the law school and residence halls are clear examples of privatization, and students will not be fooled by this doublespeak.
Surprisingly, during that same town hall, Crow contradicted ASU’s Housing Guide — which states that it is “mandatory for first-year freshmen to live on-campus” — by making the reverse claim that first-year freshmen living is not mandatory, but merely the “expectation.”
This “expectation” requires students to file an exemption based on a narrow list of reasons, with the final decision left up to University Housing. Despite the euphemism, it is common sense to interpret this strict opt-out policy as mandatory.
According to a Feb. 1 Arizona Capitol Times article titled, “Michael Crow: ASU tuition hike coming,” Crow said, “Right now, we are anticipating substantially less than 50 percent of the governor’s budget reduction would be addressed through tuition adjustments.”
The amount of doublespeak in the statement above almost made my mind explode. First, “substantially less then 50 percent” can mean anywhere from 0 to 49.9 percent, being a solid example of the ambiguity of doublespeak. Second, tuition adjustments? Coming into our ninth year of tuition hikes since Crow took office in 2002, rarely anyone today will buy that euphemism.
Remorsefully, the examples citing both Crow and Martin as constant culprits of doublespeak are only a few of many instances of university administrations nationwide engaging in this game to push their neo-liberal agenda.
Will students continue to be fooled by University Doublespeak? We cannot afford to, and that is not doublespeak, that’s just a fact.
Athena is welcoming anything other than doublespeak at asalman3@asu.edu
