Editorial

This is dedicated to “Senator” J.D. Vance who now ignorantly assaults his alma mater on the basis of an ignorant, ideologically-driven Wall Street Journal Opinion Essay. Despite his OSU BA and Yale law degrees, Vance writes to OSU’s incoming, not yet in office president Top Gun Carter, not to the acting president in office. Of course, all this is only for show…. Never for tell….

The contradictions are  incalculable. The right-wing—not conversative—National Association of Scholars joins forces with their ideological partners in the shameless Opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal to attack The Ohio State University baselessly. While this will thrill Sen. Jerry Cirino when he finds a literate person to read it to him, and amuse the Board of Trustees, it will rattle the ghost of Salmon P. Chase whose memory is deeply insulted by its association with OSU’s new anti-diversity center.

Note: What is Ginther doing at the Climate Summit in Dubai? Is he taking lessons? Having a vacation?  Watching the “sun rise” over a city with a skyline?

More importantly, who paid for his trip?

Never bet on Andy, Council, their division heads, or overpaid for quality of work ad agencies getting anything correct. Their consistency, historically, is against all odds. If our world were random, City reality and reality of the ground would occasionally collide. But never in Columbus, Ohio.

Andy outdoes himself in his  latest dishonest screed, that appears on the first Sunday of December in the anti-editing, non-news Columbus Dispatch beside editor  Robinson’s almost every other day “guest essay.” She is unique in the history of Opinion page editors.

In his latest, Andy begins with an exceptionally rare statement: “Columbus is growing faster than ever before—that’s a fact.”  I was not aware that the City and “mayor” recognized “facts.” In this case, he is correct for recent growth but incorrect over the city’s more than 200-year history.

News: Youngstown State University follows Ohio State University in appointing a retired military man as president. Radically gerrymandered Ohio US Representative Bill Johnson—best known as a roaring Trumpist and loud election denier—served in the US Air  Force for 26 years.

Unlike “Top Gun” Ted Carter who retired as a vice admiral in the Navy and led 1200 student vocational US Naval Academy and briefly the University  of Nebraska System but never a large academic campus, Johnson retired as lieutenant colonel. Condemned by all YSU parties including faculty, students, and alumni, much like his OSU football coach predecessor Jim Tressell, Johnson has no relevant preparation or experience. Tressell at least knew the locker room.

That no longer matters in Ohio, much as State Senator Jerry Cirino wishes.

Mayoral challenger Joe Motil and his supporters—more than 1/3 of voters in a typically low turnout mayor and council election—made careful control of tax abatements central to his campaign. Let us remember that Motil was outspent by the incumbent about 100 to 1 but defeated by less than 2 to 1 in perhaps the most corrupt and dishonest re-election campaign in Columbus history.

Just as Andy refused to debate or appear publicly in a purportedly democratic contest—exemplifying the Columbus Way, and their fear of a public democracy on which it is based—neither City Council nor its Department of Uncoordinated, Highly Selective Development—learned a single thing.

Just as Department Director Michael Stevens cannot tell the difference between Ns and percentages when he lies to the media, not one of them understands either urban or economic development. Together, they defy all odds. They seem willfully ignorant of the social, economic, and physical conditions of the city that they are paid to oversee.

Part Two

All the issues remain on the table despite more than two decades of ignoring, stalling, denying, and lying. Where is university compliance and integrity? Nowhere to be found on the ground, across campus, and the adjacent University District where most students live, or in the lives and well-being of present and former students.

On campus, faculty sexual abuse of students goes almost universally unpunished. In rare cases, OSU waits until the offender retires, and then strips them of their honorary “emeritus” title. For decades, OSU ignores or buries almost all reports of scientific misconduct especially in the Medical Center. There is a documented history of efforts to fire whistleblowers. Those with resources to fight back often win. Younger researchers without tenure, especially women, have their academic careers end. (See m “The enterprise of scientific misconduct: Malpractice at Ohio State University”)

Part Two

All the issues remain on the table despite more than two decades of ignoring, stalling, denying, and lying. Where is university compliance and integrity? Nowhere to be found on the ground, across campus, and the adjacent University District where most students live, or in the lives and well-being of present and former students.

On campus, faculty sexual abuse of students goes almost universally unpunished. In rare cases, OSU waits until the offender retires, and then strips them of their honorary “emeritus” title. For decades, OSU ignores or buries almost all reports of scientific misconduct especially in the Medical Center. There is a documented history of efforts to fire whistleblowers. Those with resources to fight back often win. Younger researchers without tenure, especially women, have their academic careers end. (See m “The enterprise of scientific misconduct: Malpractice at Ohio State University”)

Part One

I preface this continuing investigation with breaking news:

The Ohio State University’s Associate Chief of Campus Safety, former Columbus Police district zone director Dennis Jeffrey and Detective Cassanda Shaffer who is officially assigned to harass and intimidate me by the Office of Legal Affairs both refuse to acknowledge that “there are laws, and that my neighbors, household, and I have rights.”  All Buckeyes should take note.

In a series of essays published in early 2022, I showed that to a considerable and self-incriminating extent universities lead by slogans rather than programs, policies, relationships, and communications. And of course, slogans substitute for honesty. (See my essays on university slogans below)

If anyone—that is, the relatively few Columbus residents who pay attention—had any doubts, the election results and the self-celebration of the re-elected seal the anti-democratic, anti-publics deal.

Consider these facts:

The “mayor” in name only—who accepts his unearned, increased salary for not doing his job, not knowing the city, and accepting no responsibility for anything—ridiculously proclaims:

“The Columbus Century” and “the sun is always rising in Columbus.”

As a historian, I should be stunned. But I know better than that. Despite his private developers and private interest group funded campaign war-chest of more than $1.5 million dollars (likely closer to $2 million) and City Hall staff working for his  campaign including appearances in ads, Ginther ignorantly borrows on political economic rhetoric of the late 19th and early 20th century of “the American—and many other--‘centuries.’” This echoes the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in the 1890s. It is not the metropolitan rhetoric of the 21st century.

Why can’t Andy and the City of Columbus hire a qualified advertising agency or PR firm? They spend more than enough!

With no recognizable history or identity of its own, the Columbus anti-democratic Democratic machine—funded by Republican private interests who live outside the city that they have commanded for much of its history—are rooted in deep currents of U.S. history. Earlier this year, I compared “mayor” in name only Andy Ginther unfavorably to infamous mid-19th century New York City’s Boss Tweed. Tweed did much more for his city than Ginther can imagine.

As a life-long resident of major cities and recognized authority on cities and their histories, I must place Ginther and his anti-publics City Council and division heads in long- and short-term context.

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, many major cities were dominated by corrupt, dishonest, self-serving Democratic machine politicians. Comparisons with loosely defined “mafia” and “mobs” were not completely imaginary. There were associations and parallels.

The Pittsburgh of my youth was controlled by mayor Davy Lawrence. Philadelphia, Detroit, New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, among many others, had their parallels in lawbreaking, corrupt, dishonest self-serving machines.

Today’s news overflows with concerns about the cost and benefits—“is college worth it?”--about higher education itself, its price, public vs. private, preparation of both students and professors, on the one hand, and fears about the maturation of Gen Z caught between social media, AI, and uncertain futures, on the other hand.

Parents and most others assume that established universities are relatively safe spaces for late-teenagers and young adults (now 18-26, no longer 18-22, years old) to grow and learn. They are often not. Irregular reports or alarms do not connect the different elements.

My focus is the failure of public universities because of their commitment to corporate profiteering, sloganeering, and private interests over public, image and finances over student lives. What I describe is true for most universities. My major example is The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio, an especially egregious example of all-too-common problems. It is a very large institution that admits to none.