De Blasio Attacks CUNY Over Petraeus Boondoggle

As we learned earlier in the week, CUNY hired war criminal, er, former general and CIA director David Petraeus to teach 3 hours a week for $150,000 a year.

Considering how CUNY keeps raising tuition and fees on students, the hiring of Petreaus to essentially do nothing (the "class" will be one of those graduate seminars) seemed to be another example of how the gravy train never ends for the members of the oligarchy and their functionaries.

Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio found the hiring of Petraeus outrageous as well:

In a letter to CUNY’s Interim Chancellor Bill Kelly, Mr. de Blasio, whose mayoral bid has been endorsed by the CUNY faculty’s union, called for Mr. Petraeus’s contract to be replaced with one offering a more modest salary, comparable to other teachers.

“This is symptomatic of what’s gone wrong in higher education. The focus on grabbing headlines and ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is sending education costs higher and higher, and putting college out of reach for working and middle class families,” Mr. de Blasio fumed in a statement. “CUNY is the gateway to the middle class. Its full resources—both public funding and its private fundraising—should focus on preserving that essential mission.”

Michael Arena, CUNY’s director for communications and marketing,  did not immediately return a request for comment, but in the past has pointed out that Mr. Petraeus’s salary is funded by private sources, not tax dollars.

Mr. de Blasio, however, was undeterred by this point.

“While I understand Gen. Petraeus’ salary comes from private fundraising and not taxpayers, the decision still raises serious questions about whether this represents the best use of these resources,” he writes in the letter. “Public universities should never put headlines ahead of affordable education.”

I love the excuse that there's nothing to see here because the Petraeus money is funded by "private sources."

Hey, if private sources want to give CUNY $150,000, that's great - but they don't have to spend it on the salary of one retired war criminal who's going to "teach" three hours a week.

I realize that of course this money is being given to CUNY just so that it can go to Petraeus.

God forbid "private sources" should give this money to CUNY to hire a full-time professor or two.