Our View - Thursday

Benson’s best for CU

Yet Boulder malcontents oppose him

The University of Colorado doesn’t need a heavyweight academic or environmental prince as president. The president doesn’t teach courses and he can’t stop global warming. Mostly, a contemporary university president raises funds, leaving academic deans to decide who teaches what. For a president, CU needs a well-connected leader with proven fundraising skills. It needs oilman Bruce Benson, who already led a $1 billion fundraising campaign for the school.

A search committee for the CU Board of Regents chose Benson as its sole finalist for the job, which has annoyed some students on the Boulder campus and House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder. Opponents to his appointment dislike the fact that Benson is a Republican, even though party affiliation has little to do with the job. They say he doesn’t seem passionate about global warming. Some CU-Boulder brat showed objection to Benson by vandalizing a portrait of him that hangs in the earth sciences building on the Boulder campus — a building paid for largely with money Benson gave. The vandal’s graffiti called Benson a “right-wing nut,” and opined that he was selected because of the money he has raised.

At a CU-Boulder question-and-answer session, one audience member displayed a sign that said “Billionaire$ for Benson.” Lets see . . . more than anything, CU needs money. Benson has money, he knows how to raise money, and he has a history of philanthropic behavior that directly benefits CU. So let’s insult him for his financial success. That makes sense.

Madden, who answers to Boulder liberals, has gone after Benson’s credentials. Benson has a bachelor’s degree in geology — fitting for an oilman — and Madden has been quoted saying his selection is “a really bad joke.” She said he would be “the least educated president ever considered in modern history.” Could college dropout Bill Gates manage CU?

Benson would replace retiring President Hank Brown, who came with no lofty academic credential beyond a law degree. Following in the footsteps of presidents with fancy doctorates, Brown is widely credited for restoring the institution’s integrity.

Though opponents cast Benson as a right-wing nut, he cochaired Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter’s P-20 Education Coordinating Council. Opposing dozens of leading conservatives, Benson supported Referendum C, which allowed state government to spend $4 billion in tax surplus revenues over five years. Much of the Referendum C money has funded colleges and universities, and Benson supported the measure partly because of his heartfelt devotion to higher education. He has served on the Denver Public Schools Foundation board and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

For state funding of higher education, Colorado ranks 48th nationally. It’s expected to slip even further when Referendum C expires in 2010.

Benson, perhaps more than anyone else, has shown the University of Colorado how to flourish financially in a state that doesn’t abuse taxpayers by throwing limitless money at its university system. He brings to the job a credential no other applicant could touch: a proven ability to raise more than $1 billion.

Colorado is fortunate that Benson wants the job. The vandal who destroyed Benson’s picture, in a building he helped build, revealed the heart and soul of the opposition. People who take property and money for granted believe they’re entitled to higher education, without regard for how it’s financed. Naturally, people like that don’t respect Bruce Benson — a man who knows how to fund their schools.

They would be legal

Food prices are climbing, and some folks can barely afford to eat. Yet farmers left perfectly good food in the fields last summer for lack of workers to harvest their crops. Higher prices for food and rotting crops in the field — could there be a connection?

Food rotted because AM talk radio hosts and a fringe presidential contender whipped up unprecedented anti-immigration hysteria for expedient professional gain. They found audiences and constituents by pandering to anger and intolerance, serving up illegal immigrants as the source of all pain.

The hysteria led to a law that took effect Jan. 1, 2007, requiring Colorado farmers to verify Social Security numbers of all laborers, and to keep on file proof that each worker is legal. Suddenly, a labor pool that had served Colorado throughout the 20th century was gone. The hype also killed congressional efforts to help honest workers immigrate legally.

Immigration regulation allows about 35,000 farm laborers temporary access to the United States each year, but farmers need some 700,000. The Rocky Mountain News reported that farmers like Frank Eckhardt, of Greeley, tried last summer to pay Americans $10 and up for work that immigrants, legal and illegal, did for $7.50 an hour. They learned that Americans don’t do field labor for any wage the agricultural market would bear. With no takers, they left food to rot.

State Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, has introduced a bill that would make the state responsible for verifying worker eligibility, relieving farmers of the task. Meanwhile, the Bush administration wants to ease a morass of regulations that make it nearly impossible for workers to obtain visas.

When regulation of human mobility causes good food to rot — while the poor go hungry — it’s time for a better plan. Outspoken immigration opponents insist their only gripe is with “illegal” immigrants. They ostensibly love the legal ones. The proposals by Looper and Bush would return the people who have traditionally harvested our food. We’re confident this won’t fuel immigration histrionics. After all, they’d be legal.