Another Token Dropped

, Malcolm A. Kline, Leave a comment

Contributing to the political imbalance on university payrolls, the University of California just lowered its quota of Republicans. “David A. Kessler, a former head of the Food and Drug Administration, has been terminated as dean of the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine,” Susan Kinzie reported in the Washington Post last month.

“After a long-running dispute over the school’s finances, in which he questioned accounting controls and an anonymous letter launched an audit of his spending, he was asked to resign this summer but refused.” Kinzie notes that “An audit cleared Kessler of wrongdoing.”

Kessler was so liberal that when his employer, George H. W. Bush, lost his re-election bid, the loser’s successor, Bill Clinton, kept him on the job at the FDA.

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.