This joke of an illegal immigrant issue is about to get serious, raises important questions but leaves others unasked. While I do not speak for KSU or its faculty, I have taught at KSU for 20 years and have an abiding interest in the University's reputation and in the integrity of America's borders. The two are not mutually exclusive. I applaud the courage of both the KSU police and Sheriff Warren for doing their duty under such stressful circumstances.
The MDJ's readership should not assume that all or even a majority of KSU's faculty and staff believe that people who are present in the United States illegally should be welcomed as students in state schools. It is not clear to me whether President Dr. Papp himself does, despite his expression of delight at Colotl's return to KSU. While I personally believe that Dr. Papp has acted in good faith in relation to Ms. Colotl, in good faith does not always equate to effectively. We all make mistakes from time to time.
As mistakes go, this one should be relatively easy to remedy and does not in my mind justify hyperbolic calls for Papp's dismissal. University presidents should be free to generate controversy once in a while. If nothing else, it helps to stimulate debate. Dr. Papp has been a breath of fresh air at KSU. My sense is that he was caught in this case between a rock and hard place not entirely of his own making.
Perhaps readers should direct more of their ire toward the Board of Regents, the governor and the General Assembly, who have consistently forced KSU and similar USG institutions to admit pretty much anyone who walks through the door. Unbelievably, until 2007, the Board of Regents actually required KSU to provide in-state tuition benefits amounting to thousands of dollars per semester to illegal aliens.
On closer examination, readers who think that Ms. Colotl is an anomaly may learn otherwise.
The Colotl case raises additional questions that go to the heart of KSU's educational mission and the mission of the United States in the world. If America is to be a treasured home for anyone, we need to quit pretending America can be a home to everyone. Sneaking over the border in the dead of night is not part of becoming an American. Basic integrity and allegiance to the rule of law are. America is (or was) a land of promise because its people were personally and politically better behaved not just different, but better - than the people outside. That promise of America will become a mirage if we do not insist on a return to better behavior by all, not just newcomers. Native Georgians who toss trash on the roadways are just as un-American as the Colotls who sneak over the border.
Along the same lines, if a KSU degree is to mean anything to anyone, it cannot be granted to everyone. The KSU brand should include a modest assurance of personal integrity on the part of the bearer. Refraining from driving without a license, lying about the existence of the license, accepting in-state tuition benefits on false pretenses and providing false addresses to investigators would be a good place to start. How likely is it that a person who engages in such deception will not also cheat on exams? The question answers itself.
Yes, the United States needs to reform its immigration laws. Perhaps KSU's Student Code of Conduct should be updated. Meanwhile, the laws and rules on the books should be applied. The KSU police and Sheriff Warren should be applauded for courageously doing so. Wish we could say the same for the federal government whose mushy, cavalier neglect of the immigration issue has precipitated a potentially destabilizing crisis.
Kurt S. Schulzke
Woodstock
Follow us on Twitter!
My letter did not begin with "This joke of an illegal immigrant issue". I would never use such language about an issue of such magnitude. Illegal immigration is emphatically not a "joke". It is a serious policy dilemma the resolution of which will require serious thinking and serious action.
1. Dr. Papp may have "acted in good faith" as you say, a person of such responsibility as Papp, should have rec'd better advice in his handling of the situation. He and his staff bent over backwards to "accomodate" Colotl. She broke the law and many students at KSU break the law every day. My children never had such personal attention by Dr. Siegel at KSU. I still do not understand why Colotl is being given special treatment.
2. You say the U.S. "needs to reform its immigration laws." NO, we do not. The federal government needs to fund & enforce the immigration laws & rules on the books NOW!
By the way Sheriff Warren, she was given one year to "graduate", yet in the news conference she did not think she might return to KSU. If she is not in school, she needs to go back to immigration detention and be deported, as those were her conditions.