Hot Air » Blog Archive » Universities are useless, Exhibit A: Jim McGreevey to teach ethics course

Universities are useless, Exhibit A: Jim McGreevey to teach ethics course

posted at 1:44 pm on April 19, 2007 by Bryan
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You can’t make this stuff up.

James E. McGreevey, who resigned the governorship under a cloud of scandal, has a new job teaching law, ethics and leadership at one of New Jersey’s public colleges.

McGreevey is now an “executive in residence” — a combination teaching and consulting post — at Kean University in Union, where he is earning $17,500. The former governor came on board without any announcement on Nov. 1, Kean officials said, and the university makes no mention of his role on its Web site or faculty directory.

Kean University is keen on Jim.

“For a university like us to have the ability of a former governor — for what we pay him — it’s an opportunity for our students we shouldn’t miss,” Kean President Dawood Farahi said in an interview yesterday. “It’s an unbelievable opportunity for us.”

Keep that word “unbelievable” in mind. It’s the only word that actually applies to hiring McGreevey to teach ethics. The Hot Air reader who tipped us to this story notes that McGreevy is a governor who:

-hired a foreign citizen as the Homeland Security Czar for New Jersey. Who couldn’t get clearance to run the position. This man turned out to be his “boy toy.”

-had a gay affair in office

-mired in multiple pay to play scandals

I suppose the university could play the Absolute Moral Authority Card and argue that no one knows more about ethics violations than McGreevey, so no one would make a better ethics professor.

In today’s universities, where critical thinking has been replaced by touchy feely pabulum, such logic might actually hold up.

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Liberal Ethics is such a crazy thing to study

Defector01 on April 19, 2007 at 1:47 PM

What’s the matter with New Jersey? Corruption upon corruption. Governors who buy the office and are so far above the law that they can’t be bothered to even wear a seat belt like the rest of the plebes. The place is almost as weird as Florida.

pistolero on April 19, 2007 at 1:50 PM

off topic, but your Red Eye video is gone, i missed it, can you put it on liveleak or dailymotion, i really want to see what levy said, lol, sorry to mess up this post ;)

mainmann on April 19, 2007 at 1:52 PM

About like having Al Capone teach a tax preparation class

LakeRuins on April 19, 2007 at 1:53 PM

New Jersey motto
Jimmy Hoffa isn’t the only thing missing here!

LakeRuins on April 19, 2007 at 1:54 PM

Well, it is New Jersey. I wouldn’t expect less.

Kini on April 19, 2007 at 1:56 PM

I take it he’s a democrat because I don’t recall hearing about this in the MSM. If he was a republican, his name would be forever emblazoned in our brains as corrupt, but since he’s a dem, and I’ll bet a lib, he gets the MSM’s libtard pass.

JustTruth101 on April 19, 2007 at 1:58 PM

“For a university like us to have the ability of a former governor — for what we pay him

Yeah, uh-huh.

McGreevey, 49, already has more than 19 years of service in the pension system. His final retirement benefit will be calculated based mostly on his nearly three years as governor, when he earned $157,000 a year. He will be eligible for his full pension once he has 25 years in the system and reaches his 60th birthday.

He’s schooling them on ethics all-righty.

pedestrian on April 19, 2007 at 1:59 PM

pistolero,

I’m from Florida :-) and I’ve lived in NJ. There is no comparison. NJ is in its own league.

INC on April 19, 2007 at 1:59 PM

Well if its a New Jersey Democrat’s ethics course I could understand it. He’d be the expert.

Libs never get held accountable.

Iblis on April 19, 2007 at 2:00 PM

Um…Professor Creepy!

soulsirkus on April 19, 2007 at 2:01 PM

Hey, if Joe Kennedy could be chairman of the SEC (go gamecocks) after all his insider trading, does this even rate?

sunny on April 19, 2007 at 2:05 PM

So instead of the women wearing short skirts in the class of a male professor to get a better grade, dare I wonder what a guy has to do in order to get a better grade?

Defector01 on April 19, 2007 at 2:08 PM

Cheap Ethics 101.

Tru2my2 on April 19, 2007 at 2:29 PM

Let me explain a little more just how bad McGreevey is.

Golab Cipel was McGreevey’s appoint as “Special Counsel to Homeland Security.” This of course came after 9/11. New Jersey, of course, is as close to the WTC as New York City is, and actually owns the properties jointly with New York. Anywho, Cipel is an Israeli citizen and could not receive top secret clearance(he’s also a published poet!).

Golan Cipel, the reticent and controversial aide to Gov. James E. McGreevey who stepped down under pressure as the state’s homeland security adviser five months ago, resigned from state government yesterday without explanation.

The 33-year-old native of Israel and published poet will take a job in the private sector, said Paul Aronsohn, a spokesman for the Governor. Officials said Cipel has several job options.

With a salary of $110,000 a year, Cipel was one of the highest-paid officials on the Governor’s staff.

“He decided he wanted to leave. … It’s up to Mr. Cipel,” Aronsohn said when asked why Cipel resigned. McGreevey “accepted his resignation with regret,” the spokesman said.

Cipel’s resignation came 10 days after the latest of several media reports questioning his job responsibilities and background. Sources close to the Governor said there has been an ongoing discussion — and, until this week, a difference of opinion — on how much of an embarrassment Cipel had become to the McGreevey administration.

“It should have happened a lot sooner,” one knowledgeable McGreevey adviser said, “but it’s someone’s career and reputation here.”

From the start, the Cipel hiring created problems for the Governor.

Initially hired as McGreevey’s special counsel on homeland security, Cipel quickly encountered stumbling blocks. Federal officials told The Star-Ledger that because Cipel was an Israeli national — a foreigner who does not have top- secret security clearance — they would refuse to share sensitive information with him.

http://www.cpanj.com/capitalreportpages/mcgreeveywatch/august2002/MCGREEVEY‘S%20RECLUSIVE%20ISRAELI%20AIDE%20STEPS%20DOWN.htm

Now, after all the hub bub came up about Cipel being hired as homeland security counsel, it eventually came out that Golan was actually McGreevey’s boyfriend, whom he met on a trip to Israel.

Golan Cipel (Hebrew: גולן ציפל, pronounced “Tzi-pel”) (born 1968)[citation needed]) is an Israeli citizen who was hired by New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey as Homeland Security Advisor on 15 January 2002 at the salary of $110,000. He is best known for allegedly having had a sexual relationship with Governor McGreevey, who at the time was married and not open about his homosexuality, then later suing his former boss, bringing the governor’s personal life into the spotlight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Cipel

So, as it came out that he was having an affair with McGreevey, McGreevey was eventually forced to make a public statement. At this time, he comes out as a “gay American” and has to resign becuase “America is not ready for a gay governor,” or something to that matter.

If all these things aren’t enough to show MASSIVE ethical problems, he then has the balls to say he had to resign becuase he’s gay and America couldn’t handle it. He then became a brave “hero” for coming out of the closet. Everyone, mainly the MSM, forgot that this guy put his foreign lover in charge of New Jersey’s Homeland Security.

In my mind, McGreevey should be in jail for putting the collective lives of New Jersey’s residence at risk.

Vincenzo on April 19, 2007 at 2:31 PM

I hear they are checking on the availiblity of William Jefferson as an guest speaker.
And their new Drivers Ed class will be taught by Corzine.

LakeRuins on April 19, 2007 at 2:33 PM

In my mind, McGreevey should be in jail for putting the collective lives of New Jersey’s residence at risk.

Vincenzo on April 19, 2007 at 2:31 PM

Anybody with an ounce of intellectual honesty will agree with you on that Vincenzo. He’s lucky he’s homosexual because, ironically, that is the only thing that saved his ass here.

Zetterson on April 19, 2007 at 2:38 PM

$17,500? doesnt mcdonalds pay more?

lorien1973 on April 19, 2007 at 2:40 PM

Liberal Ethics is ~~such a crazy thing to study~~ an oxymoron.

Defector01 on April 19, 2007 at 1:47 PM

Fixed that for ya!

infidel4life on April 19, 2007 at 2:42 PM

Would the class require special equipment like rubber gloves and and a doctors note?

Would shots be required, and not the kind that you toss back. Although, I would probably need a few… shots.

Kini on April 19, 2007 at 2:48 PM

Kean University? Yeah, that’s a good school.

saint kansas on April 19, 2007 at 2:51 PM

I hear they are checking on the availiblity of William Jefferson as an guest speaker.
And their new Drivers Ed class will be taught by Corzine.

LakeRuins on April 19, 2007 at 2:33 PM

I hear Kathleen Blanco is about to have a lot of time on her hands.

Rick on April 19, 2007 at 3:14 PM

Old saying in the military comes to mind-

Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.

SPIFF1669 on April 19, 2007 at 3:39 PM

I dunno … if the teaching emphasis of the class is, “Here’s what not to do, take it from someone who knows” then it might have some value.

There’s something to be learned from the mistakes of others, after all.

Like the Canadians giving us pointers on how to conduct the D-Day landings, based on their experience at Dieppe.

Or like Oprah Winfrey did once, gathering a collection of “experts on how to preserve a marriage” to offer their advice to the audience - their “expertise” being that they’d all been divorced at least six times.

But McGreevey being a donk, sadly the class will be another example of what the Soviets used to call, “Coming out of the water dry” - kind of like hiring Ted Kennedy to teach a defensive driving course and keeping a straight face.

Spurius Ligustinus on April 19, 2007 at 3:40 PM

That’s beautiful. It reminds me of two local Chicago school stories:

Northwestern University Law School employs convicted domestic terrorist Bernardine Dohrn as a teacher. She can’t be admitted to any bar because of her felony conviction, so she can’t do, say, real estate closings. But she can teach in an elite law school.

Her husband Bill Ayers, scumbag domestic terrorist and Weather Underground grad, cum laude, is a distinguished professor of elementary education at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

These three examples of leftist stupidity are almost as funny as legal lightweight Barry Obama teaching constitutional law at Teh University of Chicago, one of the finer law schools in the country.

Jaibones on April 19, 2007 at 3:45 PM

Just the term Liberal Ethics confuses me.

wytammic on April 19, 2007 at 3:45 PM

Just the term Liberal Ethics confuses me.

wytammic on April 19, 2007 at 3:45 PM

It’s the same “ethics” that are cleaning up the “culture of corruption”.

Rick on April 19, 2007 at 3:48 PM

New Jersey has always been ripe with sickos in high places. Remember the poet laureate from NJ, Amiri Baraka, formerly known as Leroi Jones before taking on his Muslim name? Here’s some of the Poet Laureates tripe ……

In 1965, Baraka wrote: “Most American white men are trained to be fags. For this reason it is no wonder their faces are weak and blank. … The average ofay [white person] thinks of the black man as potentially raping every white lady in sight. Which is true, in the sense that the black man should want to rob the white man of everything he has. But for most whites the guilt of the robbery is the guilt of rape. That is, they know in their deepest hearts that they should be robbed, and the white woman understands that only in the rape sequence is she likely to get cleanly, viciously popped.”

He also blamed the Jews for 9/11.

What’s in the water in NJ …. dilluted Hoffa?

fogw on April 19, 2007 at 4:39 PM

I can’t wait to her about John Mark Karr being hired to teach Child Development.

Tim Burton on April 19, 2007 at 6:06 PM

It’s the same “ethics” that are cleaning up the “culture of corruption”.

Rick on April 19, 2007 at 3:48 PM

Thanks ;)

wytammic on April 19, 2007 at 6:06 PM

“Universities are useless….”

The universities shelter certain people who, nearly alone among mankind, make this world worth my living in. Those particular people and, consequently, the universities that shelter many of them, are the main reasons I try to use my talents constructively instead of using them for destructive sport. Universities always need friendly critics and often need reforms, but they also need defenders against their demotic enemies.

Kralizec on April 19, 2007 at 7:30 PM

…and Teddy (”The Cape Cod Orca”) Kennedy can teach water safety at the Y.

bofh on April 19, 2007 at 7:35 PM

Damn Bofh!
I was just gonna say something like that!
Actually Teddy could teach health & nutrition-along with Michael Moor-on.

annoyinglittletwerp on April 19, 2007 at 10:42 PM

In today’s universities, where critical thinking has been replaced by touchy feely pabulum, such logic might actually hold up.

In this blog post, in which accurate description was replaced by sloppy generalizations, the logic never even really got itself up. Given the subject matter, the post could easily have been written in such a way that I would have agreed with it. Awareness of the ease with which one could have owned the field makes the imperial overreach here even more striking.

Kralizec on April 20, 2007 at 1:49 AM

Why that’s as stupid as putting Ted Kennedy on the Senate Ethics Committee!

Oh wait . . .

Dudley Smith on April 20, 2007 at 11:58 AM

Imagine Mark Foley teaching any soft-skill topic. The media would go ballistic.

Entelechy on April 20, 2007 at 2:31 PM

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