There is a scene toward the end of the first Batman movie, where the Joker (played by Jack Nicholson) is standing on a parade float throwing money into the crowd. That image comes to mind with Obama’s new budget. In The Chronicle’s piece about it, the writers point to the 31 percent increase for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and say that this will “bolster Title IX enforcement.”
Hans Bader of Competitive Enterprise Institute, who once worked in the OCR, has a different view, saying that it means “more funding for federal witchhunts and pressure on colleges to abolish due process.” Exactly. Count on Obama to succor his ideological brethren at the expense of the taxpayer.
In my latest Forbes piece, I ask why these federal minions have any authority to dictate disciplinary procedures (or anything else) to colleges. They shouldn’t, but do because of the near extinction of federalism.