Picky, picky

LITTLE ROCK — THOSE picky Republicans. Some of them are even objecting to Mike Beebe’s choosing one of Arkansas’ leading Democrats to head the state’s Department of Higher Education. They say he isn’t qualified. What nonsense. Shane Broadway has the most important qualification of all for such an appointment: He’s a political crony of the governor’s. He was Governor Beebe’s running mate last year, and is a member in better than good standing of the Democratic establishment and the state’s good-old-boy network, which aren’t always easy to tell apart. What more could you ask?

Why, Shane Broadway is a veteran of years-of decades!-of deal making at the Ledge. The man’s extensive political résumé includes being both Speaker of the House and a former state senator. He knows power, influence and generally how The System works. He might be lieutenant governor today if he hadn’t been defeated by some Republican upstart in the GOP sweep of the 2010 elections. How about that? One danged election and the world turns upside down. Democracy is so unreliable.

Shane Broadway had to settle for a job as deputy commissioner of the state’s Department of Higher Education as a consolation prize. To the loser belong the spoils. He could just as well have been put on the state’s Game and Fish Commission, another political plum reserved for gubernatorial favorites. (Remember when its junta was planning to pass a little ol’ Secrecy of Information Act all its own? Some of us in the press do, and so should the whole state.) When the No. 1 man at Higher Ed moved on to an out-of-state job, Mr. Broadway was appointed interim director with the Guv’s blessings. And now it appears he’s ready to move on up the career ladder. An appointment as director of Higher Ed makes a great safe harbor for pols between elected posts. It’s a nice, high-paying job. And its holder gets to distribute all that scholarship money from the state lottery. (Don’t ask too many questions about how many poor and ignorant suckers provide the dough.) Result: Mr. Broadway can pose as some kind of Great Benefactor and Source of All Good Things for the state’s college students, who vote these days.

In political terms, if no other, this is the perfect appointment. Not qualified? Shane Broadway’s got every qualification that counts with Mike Beebe and Democratic company.

BUT AS Mayor Daley I of Chicago, that toddlin’ town, used to say whenever any decision of his machine was questioned, “Dere’s always a technicality to everyt’ing.” In this case, there’s a slight one: the law. Because according to said law, if anybody cares, the director of the Department of Higher Education in this state has got to have a considerable amount of it himself. Including experience as an educator at a college or university. And, oh, yes, be the product of the usual search-and-selection process. Shane Broadway would seem to be free of any such encumbrances. He’s got something much better: friends in high places.

But why go into such technicalities? Shane is the Guv’s boy and a good ol’ boy at that. He’s had quite a lot of experience if not on campus then at handing out all the appropriations, college scholarships and other goodies his department can deliver. So what college administrator is going to dare object to his appointment? Especially if, as permanent director of Higher Ed, he would have his fingers on the purse strings. Like everybody else, college administrators need to think ahead.

Great thing, cold cash. Especially if it’s provided by the taxpayers. It can transform an ordinary pol into some kind of Socrates, at least in the press releases. The head of the University of Arkansas system, B. Alan Sugg, raised no objections to this appointment, for if anybody in the state knows how these things work, it’s B. Alan Sugg, whose whole career has been a model of keeping his mouth set just right. He’s not about to differ with the powers that be, and anybody can see what they want in this case.

The law? Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. David Leech, the chairman of the Board of Higher Education, has already greased the rails for this appointment. He says he’s checked with the attorney general’s office (not to mention the governor’s office) and concluded-without benefit of a court ruling, naturally-that the law about such an appointment is “very vague.”

Really? Mr. Leech could have surprised us. Maybe the law is vague only to David Leech. To us, Arkansas Code Annotated 6-61-203 sounds just full of specific requirements for the job of director of Higher Ed, none of which Mr. Broadway would seem to have. That statute says the director “shall be an experienced educator in the field of higher education” who “must have relevant experience on a campus of higher education.”

Shane Broadway has a bachelor’s in political science and was once a consultant for the Saline County Economic Development Corp., which is doubtless a fine organization, but doesn’t sound like a university campus to us. Any more than the Senate cloakroom at the Ledge or the executive suite at the Dept. of Higher Ed does. Each in its way can doubtless provide a fine education in the lower arts, like political maneuvering and bureaucractic finagling in general, but somehow we don’t think that’s what those who drafted Arkansas Code Annotated 6-61-203 had in mind when they referred to higher education.

Oh, yes, the law also mandates that the director of the Department of Higher Education be chosen “through a search and selection process. . . .” That’s another small detail Chairman Leech would seem to have overlooked. Never mind. His conclusion: “It’s my opinion we’ve got someone more qualified than what the law says.” There’s no doubt about that being his opinion, or about Mr. Leech’s readiness to go beyond the law. But that may be the only thing beyond doubt about this latest sighting of politics in the name of education. As usual in these cases, you can’t see the education for the political games.

BUT WHAT does all this really matter? So long as a society’s idea of education is just to credential the next generation of warm bodies to fill college classes, so long as the object of schooling is to fill slots in the workforce, so long as state universities continue to dumb down their offerings and dilute their curricula, so long as education is considered mainly job training rather than having much to do with thought or art or moral worth . . . then isn’t a political hack with some experience at doling out public funds a much better appointment than someone who’s actually an educator? The pol knows the ropes.

Yes, there is that little matter of respect for the law, the institution that not only keeps us from tearing each other apart limb from limb (for man is scarcely one of the more passive species) but might even raise society’s standards if respected. For the law can be a great teacher when it’s not being used for personal aggrandizement. So apart from a little detail like respect for the law, why not substitute political influence for learning? Anybody familiar with academic politics knows that the substitution was made long ago on many a campus.

It’s not any particular appointment that’s so telling about what our state and society really value (power, influence, money, social status) but the widespread assumption that the purpose of education is to ensure material progress rather than other kinds.

It’s just a thought. Indeed, the ubiquity of phrases like “It’s just a thought,” or “I’m just sayin’ ”-phrases designed to put some distance between the speaker and responsibility for the view he’s espousing-is one more symptom of how far we have come from responsible citizenship.