Weak Leadership
Winston-Salem Journal (North Carolina)
September 28, 2009, Monday
Gov. Bev Perdue and Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton exhibited disappointingly weak leadership earlier this month on the question of enrolling illegal immigrants in the state's 58 community colleges.
Unfortunately, the failure appears to stem from political considerations, namely a fear of upsetting the vocal anti-immigration contingent.
The State Board of Community Colleges voted to admit illegal immigrants at its campuses beginning next year.
This will reverse a no-admission policy that went into effect in May 2008, in the middle of the statewide campaigns Perdue and Dalton won.
Dalton sits on the board but didn't debate the issue. He simply voted against the proposal and issued a statement afterward. Perdue had a press aide say she also disagreed with the board's decision.
The new policy is very limited and falls far short of the kind of pro-education and pro-young people images both Perdue and Dalton like to project.
As Stuart Fountain, a key board member in the discussion, said, the policy's aim is only to help a limited number of youngsters, those who came to the United States as children, with their parents, and who cannot be held responsible for illegally entering the country. That is their parents' fault.
As this debate raged in 2007 and 2008, progressive education leaders like former Gov. Jim Hunt appealed to the big hearts of North Carolinians, and to their sense of fairness.
Many of the 111 illegal immigrants found to be enrolled in community colleges then had been here a long time.
They had studied in our high schools and done well enough to earn admission.
They had played by the rules even though their parents had come here illegally.
A number said they had no connections to the home countries of their parents; they considered themselves Americans.
Hunt pleaded for North Carolinians to look forward. It is better to allow these young people to pursue an education so they can be productive than to create a permanent underclass.
Perdue, unfortunately, is more interested in bolstering her 30-percent approval rating. And Dalton issued a specious statement saying the colleges cannot afford the burden of educating these students in this economy.
In fact, the students will only be allowed to enroll if no one else wants an open seat in a class, and they will pay out-of-state tuition.
So, their schooling will actually add little incrementally to the colleges' costs while bringing in new revenue. This is actually a good deal for taxpayers.
The two Democrats cannot look at this logically, however. They are too interested in ameliorating those voters so passionately opposed to any rights for illegal immigrants.
That shows a lack of leadership.
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