The Separation of School and State

Okay, it's getting down to the worse time of year for me. It's that time when every California state university and college student is pressured to register to vote. And those doing the pressuring make no bones about putting in a good word for their own favorites.

Back when Governor Kennedy (aka, the "Governator") was running, I was hounded by campus advocates collecting Social Security numbers - in the form of voting registrations. One rep actually told my friends and me that we needed to register "so that you can vote 'No' on the recall and for Bustamonte for governor"!!! So, I need to be told how to vote? By a campus rep?

A year later, during a grad student orientation, some rep from the Office of the Dean of Graduate Studies actually told the non-California residents that they needed to vote in California to get residency...a blatant lie! She also hinted that their votes were needed to it to avoid a repeat of the 2000 Presidential election. She failed to mention that, regardless of what these students did, California's electoral votes were going to go to the Democratic candidate. All she did was encourage students from borderline states to throw their votes away!

Why pressure college students to vote? Yes, they're underrepresented in the voting population, but isn't that their business? Why have links on the school website? Why the pop-up ads? Why let activists take up precious classroom time to encourage full-grown adults to do something that they obviously would have done if they cared about it? I call for the separation of school and state! Leave the on-campus recruiting to independent groups and their sidewalk booths and rallies. At least, they're expected to be partisan.