Bacon's Rebellion

Since the morning of April 16, Virginia Tech students, professors and administrators have displayed extraordinary dignity in the face of one of the nation’s great tragedies. My respect for the institution and those who are part of it has increased immeasurably. I can only hope that I, if faced with a comparable horror, would acquit myself as well.

Although punditry is my business, I have largely withheld commentary about the public policy implications of the shooting rampage for two reasons: First, I thought it appropriate to let the mourners bury the bodies of their loved ones before pontificating on the meaning of it all, and second I wanted to see more facts emerge. We do no honor to the fallen by jumping to conclusions based on preconceived notions. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has done precisely the right thing by setting up an independent review panel to inquire into the April 16 tragedy and the events leading up to it.

Presumably, the review panel will endeavor to determine if the rampage could have been prevented, and what it will take to prevent another such incident from reoccurring. The panel’s inquiries undoubtedly will follow many of the same trails blazed by journalists investigating the massacre: Were Virginia’s gun laws tight enough? Is Virginia’s system for treating the mentally ill too lax and unaccountable?

To my mind, the central question is this: How was it possible for someone as mentally unstable as Cho Seung-Hui to acquire two guns? In 2005, a Montgomery County magistrate had found the student to be a danger to himself and others. But, according to Bill McElway with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, state and federal authorities disagree over whether such a finding restricted Cho’s right to purchase a gun.

After the magistrate found Cho to be a danger, McElway reports, he was detained for assessment at a county mental facility, then released the next day. State law did not permit him to be institutionalized: He was to be provided the least restrictive appropriate form of medical care: in his case, outpatient treatment. Because he was released, authorities did not deem him to have been “admitted” to a mental facility. Writes McElway:

That means no record of the person’s assessment, even if the person is found to be mentally ill and a danger, is forwarded to law-enforcement agencies for background check purposes.

So, the “obvious” remedy is to tighten up reporting requirements for mentally ill patients. If future Chos are found to be a danger, that information should be conveyed to law enforcement officials and should be grounds for blocking the purchase of hand guns.

But it’s not quite so simple. The desire to restrict the rights of crazy people to acquire hand guns — a restriction that I totally support, incidentally — will run smack into the rights of the mentally ill. I dare say that the review panel will uncover a host of advocates who work tirelessly to expand the privacy rights of the mentally ill, to avoid actions that would stigmatize them and to require due process before institutionalizing them against their will or depriving them of other civil rights. Cho fell through the cracks, I hypothesize, because a broad-based social movement dedicated to taking the mentally ill out of institutions and integrating them back into society has worked diligently to expand their rights.

We might well find that the problem in Cho’s case wasn’t insufficiently tight gun laws, or inadequate spending on mental health care. As Walt Kelly said, “We have found the enemy and it is us” — our culture and legal system, which gives primacy of the rights of individuals, including those of the mentally ill, over the collective good. Should the review panel find that to be the case, the “obvious” solution isn’t so obvious at all.

Yesterday, a Senate ethics board heard allegations that Senators Thomas K. Norment, R-Williamsburg and Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach have engaged in a conflict of interest when legislating property rights. According to Roanoke lawyer G. David Nixon, the two powerful lawmakers have a conflict because they either represent clients that acquire property through eminent domain or engage in rainmaking activity for clients that do.

(See our coverage of this issue in “Is There a Conflict of Interest in the State Senate?” and “The Case Against Norment: Suggestive But Not Persuasive.”

The panel, headed by former James Madison University President Ronald E. Carrier, met five hours. Norment testified before the group, according to an article by Jeff Schapiro in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. (Schapiro did not say whether Stolle testified.) The panel is required to rule on the allegations in June.

One of the more obscure laws to emerge from the 2007 General Assembly allows local school boards to work out deals with private schools to transport their students on the same buses. Predictably, this common-sense measure was opposed by the Virginia School Boards Association on the grounds that public money should not “subsidize” private education. (Don’t you love that attitude? What? Save money? Not if it means helping those stinkin’ private schools!) But, as the Daily Press observes in an editorial today, the idea makes a lot of sense.

Any time public school buses are driving with empty seats, those buses have unused capacity. If public school systems can generate revenue from filling those seats, it comes out ahead. As the DP writes:

John Sugg writes in Reason magazine that southern states are leading the way in doling out incentives to lure businesses:

Consider three deals finalized in 1995, all of them in North Carolina. This End Up, a furniture manufacturer, accepted $230,000 and other incentives from the state for a new plant near Fayetteville that would employ 200 people; then it closed a Raleigh plant that employed 150. Quaker Oats received $98,000 for a new 98-worker plant near Asheville; then it closed another North Carolina operation where 70 people worked. Seffi Industries took $300,000 and promised to create 300 new jobs. It not only failed to open a new plant or hire a single new person but a few months later went out of business altogether.
Trendy businesses—particularly technology firms—have the greatest leverage in demanding government subsidies. In February, for example, biofuel manufacturer Range Fuels, based on lit?tle more than its word that it could deliver a economically competitive product, was offered $6 million in state cash, a 97-acre tract in central Georgia, and a set of tax abatements. At best, the company will employ 70 people.

Other beneficiaries of business welfare in??clude low-tech factories in the mid-South; call centers in the Tampa Bay area; auto manufacturers in Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia; and biotech firms in Florida and North Carolina. Publicly financed sports stadiums are common across the nation, and the South is no exception. Tampa built Raymond James Stadium for the Buccaneers a decade ago as part of a deal that will divert $1 billion in taxpayer money to team owner Malcolm Glazer over 30 years. Glazer, in a style common to team owners, threatened to move the football team if he didn’t get a new stadium. To win voter approval for a bond issue to finance the project, city officials attached it to a referendum providing money to alleviate crowding in the city’s schools. The stadium was built long before most of the new schools.

My libertarian impulse is to look at such giveaways as just another example of graft, and Sugg goes on to make the argument that incentives can lead to corruption, though it is not exactly widespread (as far as I know).

The one example he cites that really got me, though, was the money chase for the NASCAR hall of fame. Virginia was in the thick of that race, too, with promises to give NASCAR millions of dollars (including a “large taxpayer investment”) if only they would locate the Hall in Henrico.

While the bid wasn’t accepted, the willingness of state and local government to toss around taxpayer funds for big business prizes still seems to be the preferred magic bullet in economic development. Sugg’s interviews people who say that it’s not the incentives that matter most, but the quality of the workforce, infrastructure and the general business climate. That’s where the attention (and the money) ought to be spent.

The Wren Cross controversy may be settled for now, but a growing number of William & Mary alumni are convinced that the cross episode is merely a symptom of a larger problem: President Gene Nichol. Seth Freedland at The Daily Press reports on a movement to pressure the Board of Visitors not to renew Nichols’ contract when it expires next summer.

The article quotes Victor K. Biebighauser, a ’75 alumnus and a steady 20-year contributor to the university who pulled the plug on his annual contributions after the cross caper. Though partially molified, he said he would not make up for his missed donation with any more money than usual. Another alumnus, Andrew McRoberts, Class of ’87, said he did not expect to resume contributing anytime soon.

Such dissatisfaction follows on the heels of an announcement by James W. McGlothlin that he would withdraw a $12 million donation. If Nichol can’t regain the confidence of alumni, W&M fund-raising efforts are doomed to falter. And when a university president can’t raise money, like University of Richmond President William Cooper, he won’t last long.

In the age of websites, blogs and e-mail, alumni can mobilize in protest against unpopular university administrators far more readily than in the past. No longer can a university president control the flow of information. As an example: Lance Kyle, class of ’89 and an Arlington resident, has e-mailed a copy of his letter to Rector Michael Powell denouncing Nichol, which I am re-publishing on this blog. (You can read the full text here.) Here’s a choice selection:

What is equally disturbing his how Nichol is demonstrating the same pattern at William & Mary as he did at Colorado and Chapel Hill. While Nichol was dean at Colorado, the law school fell 12 points … in the USN&WR rankings and almost lost its ABA accreditation while at Chapel Hill it fell 8 points. At both schools, the local papers were filled with op-eds by disgruntled alumni, students and taxpayers admonishing Nichol to “focus on building and managing the law school instead of his personal, radical agenda.” The same thing is happening at William & Mary and red flags are everywhere. The stakeholders are complaining while W&M falls further behind its peers in terms of applicant stats (SATs are flat and GPAs are falling) and fundraising growth not to mention the NACUBO endowment ratings. … All of this will translate into lower rankings and devalued diplomas.

Writes Kyle elsewhere: “W&M desperately needed a superstar fundraiser but instead got a failed politician who is saddling the school with meaningless expenses.”

I don’t know how fair these charges are but they are serious — and they are being heard. Clearly Nichol has aroused the alumni, and the antagonism appears to be growing. Let us hope that he doesn’t wind up destroying this eminent institution as a result.

On May 3, 2007, the Virginia Conservation Network (VCN) will honor individuals and organizations within the Commonwealth who have set themselves apart as leaders in conservation and sustainability. The event, which will include a performance by the Capitol Steps, will take place at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond. The evening will begin with a reception for sponsors and awardees at 5:30, followed by the awards presentation at 7:00 and Capitol Steps performance at 7:30.

Richard Cizik, nationally known evangelical leader, will be honored with the award for Individual Leadership within the Faith Community on the Issue of Global Warming & Sustainability. Cizik will make brief remarks about his work raising the profile of global climate change within the faith community.

For ticket information, click here.

College of William and Mary President Gene Nichol has stirred up a good deal of controversy at Virginia’s oldest university. The Wrenn Cross episode was only the most visible of his antics. (See “Nichol Bound for Duke?” for a satirical take on his brief but tempestuous tenure there, with links to documentation of less widely publicized flaps.)

Now comes another brouhaha that has already gained national attention on conservative talk radio. Reserve Officer Training Corps students are asking W&M to give them full credit for the military science courses they take, rather than limiting to six the number of credits that can be counted towards graduation. The student senate unanimously voted to give ROTC courses full credit, that all credits earned count to the 120 needed to graduate, and that the changes be made retroactive. But President Gene Nichol, reports Matt Pinsker, a sophomore who is leading the effort, “has not responded to any requests for a meeting to discuss the issue.”

The United States is at war; some 4,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, one of America’s leading universities extends credit for “Art 327: Hand-building Ceramics” and “Kinesiology 130: Adventure Games” but curtails the credits ROTC students earn for studying military science four hours a week in the classroom and engaging in physical education for three hours a week.

When I was going through the University of Virginia at the tail end of the Vietnam War, students protested in front of the Navy ROTC building. Today, students at W&M are protesting in favor of ROTC. How the wheel turns…

I don’t know what role, if any, Nichol played in putting W&M’s rules into place. But he can certainly play a role in changing them –and making the College more hospitable to the patriotic young men and women who want to serve their country and, in all likelihood, risk spilling their blood in a distant land when they graduate.

For details of this brewing controversy, see this report in the Daily Press, and this story in the Flat Hat, the college newspaper.

Update: I hear from Mr. Pinsker that President Nichol has agreed to an appointment “later this month.”

There are no words to describe the enormity of this morning’s tragedy at Virginia Tech, so I won’t even try. But if there any Hokie readers out there, please know that the thoughts and prayers of every Virginian are with the staff, students, parents and everyone else in the Virginia Tech community right now.

Darragh Johnson’s did does a nice job in today’s front page WaPo story on the insight of children. (“Fear of Climate Change Scares – and Inspires – Kids, Fears About Environment Pushing Kids to Act – Some to Therapy.”)

I recall well that it was Columbia’s Bryant Woods Elementary School students who inspired the adults in our Thicket Lane Cluster to start and maintain a recycling program in the early 70s. They also led in the observance of, and deepened the meaning of Earth Day.

In our column, “All Aboard” this week we note that Patrick Kane’s “Boom Town” class exercises in Reston elementary schools over the past 20 years have demonstrated the ability of fourth graders to do a better job of planning functional settlement patterns than groups of adults or professionals.

Norman Leahy did a great job of putting his finger on the need for Fundamental Change in schools and in education in his Blog post “School’s Out Forever” last Thursday. Our program for Fundamental Change in education outlined The Shape of the Future would accommodate many of the ideas put forward in the comments for flexible schooling. The revenue flow to support Dooryard preschool, Cluster lower elementary, Neighborhood upper elementary plus and Village high and Community continuing education could be allocated to accommodate mixed ages, work and learn, service and learn and other approaches that match student needs.

The key is Fundamental Change. When the “professionals” got hold of the Columbia schools that are part of the Howard County “system” the original insights and innovation went out the window as we document in The Shape of the Future.

EMR