Jim Dey: Rep. Ammons looking for a few good donors

May 13—Social event of year

State Rep. Carol Ammons, who represents Champaign-Urbana in Springfield, is throwing a party June 1, and she's looking for guests with fat wallets.

"Will you join us for this special event and sponsor our efforts?" states an announcement picturing a smiling Ammons in a flowing gown.

The event is being held partly to celebrate her "10 years of service" in the Illinois House and partly to celebrate Ammons' birthday.

But this shindig ain't cheap.

Sponsors of the event are being asked to kick in big money that will, no doubt, go for political purposes.

The cost of admission is $10,000 for sponsors at the Champion level, $5,000 for "Final Four" level, $2,500 for "Elite 8" level, $1,250 for "Sweet 16" and $500 for "Fan" level.

The sports theme for sponsors stems from the party theme: "The Big Ten."

Her announcement states that "ticket prices are based on a sliding scale of $50-$150 in advance and $200 at the door. So don't wait. Pay what you can and purchase your tickets now @CAROLAMMONS.COM."

The party will last from 6 to 9 p.m. in Suite 142 at 300 S. Broadway Ave., Urbana.

Cantor's comeback

Like a bad penny that keeps showing up, former University of Illinois Chancellor Nancy Cantor has a new gig.

She'll take over as president of Hunter College in New York City on Aug. 12.

That might surprise some people, considering that Cantor was told last August that she'd be unceremoniously retired from her position as chancellor of Rutgers-Newark at the end of this school year.

Hunter College has 23,000 students and is the largest of the 25 colleges in the City University of New York system.

Cantor's mother was a member of the Hunter College Class of 1943.

Now 72, Cantor is in her 10th year as the head of Rutgers' Newark campus.

She apparently did not anticipate changing jobs until Aug. 16, 2023, when Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway, in a press release overflowing with praise of Cantor, announced that her contract would not be renewed when it expires this June.

That came as news to Cantor, who did not hide her anger over the obvious dismissal.

Cantor became chancellor at the University of Illinois in 2001, leaving an administrative post at Michigan.

She left the UI under fire in 2004, moving on to Syracuse. After a lengthy tenure there, she wore out her welcome and moved on to Rutgers-Newark.

Cantor said she is "eager to collaborate with communities across New York City to highlight how higher education can answer the call of what the public needs, now and going forward."

"On a personal level, coming to Hunter and CUNY allows me to carry on a family legacy," she said.

Wolf not at door

That's what University of Illinois economist J. Fred Giertz said in his latest monthly Flash Index report.

Economists have for months been predicting a recession that has yet to arrive. But Giertz has rejected many of his colleagues' predictions by saying that a recession hasn't arrived because it won't.

He said the "strength" of the economy has "surprised many observers."

"... A minor recession was expected, but the hope was for a soft landing instead. More recently, the soft landing seems to have been achieved. Now a third possibility is in play, that of no slowdown at all," he said.

Giertz's Flash Index, one in which he scores the state's economy uses a weighted average of growth rates in corporate earnings, consumer spending and personal income, as estimated from receipts for corporate, sales and individual income taxes.

Any number above 100 reflects a growing Illinois economy.

For April, Giertz slightly raised the index number from 102.8 to 103.

Giertz's analysis on the April statistics is similar to those recently released by the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.

He said state personal income tax receipts were "strong" while sales tax numbers were "steady." Corporate income tax revenues were below "April of last year."

Bad publicity

Illinois has been getting some negative press in national publications.

The Wall Street Journal recently published a scalding editorial — "Illinois Pension Suicide Pact" — that raised concerns that legislators are planning to approve unnecessary and financially debilitating pension boosts for public employees.

The Daily Caller piled on with a long article headlined, "Forget California, Illinois May Be a New Contender for the Most Dysfunctional State."

The Journal expressed major concerns over the implications of organized labor's effort to repeal Tier 2 pension benefits for public employees hired on or after Jan. 1, 2011.

"Gov. J.B. Pritzker ... would have to take on the unions and look out for taxpayers, which he has never done. If unions succeed in rolling back Illinois' pension modifications, they are certain to try the same in other states," the editorial stated.

The Journal also took issue with claims that Tier 2 benefits do not meet federal "safe harbor" requirements, a circumstance that, if true, would require higher state spending to meet them.

"This is nonsense. The maximum Social Security benefit this year for a 70-year-old is $58,476. A Tier 2 worker can retire with a roughly $94,000 annual annuity. Illinois Tier 2 pensions are much more generous than Social Security," the Journal said.

The Daily Caller piece quoted conservative fiscal analysts who contend the state's combination of high taxes, high debt and high crime plus public corruption create a negative cycle that repeats itself.

"This makes things even worse and further damages the state's economy. More productive people and businesses leave. This process has the state heading steadily toward bankruptcy, an increasing outflow of the hardest-working people and their replacement by immigrants from other countries," S.T. Karnick of The Heartland Institute said.

DEI RIP MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has disposed of one of the latest fads to sweep college campuses.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth said the school will no longer require applicants to write supportive diversity-equity-inclusion (DEI) statements to be considered for employment.

Kornbluth said the "compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don't work."

Long subject to quiet protest from intimidated faculty members too frightened to speak out, the DEI oaths have been characterized as efforts to create an attitude of political conformance on campus.

An MIT spokeswoman said the loyalty oaths were "never a university-wide requirement for faculty hiring" but that "some departments had chosen to ask for them."

The DEI mandate is politically combustible. Perhaps that's why Kornbluth, a research cell biologist, made it a point to point out that her decision to revoke DEI also had the support of numerous campus administrators and deans as well as MIT's vice president for equity and inclusion.

Supporters of the DEI loyalty oaths have argued they are necessary to ensure faculty members have the proper attitudes toward all students. But free-speech supporters contend the compelled speech violates individuals' rights to free speech.

At the same time, critics also have charged that requiring the loyalty oaths as a condition of employment places secondary importance on academic qualifications.

The New York Times, which reported on the story, said DEI requirements are considered "particularly corrosive in the sciences, where maintaining academic rigor can actually be a matter of life and death."

Kornbluth's announcement comes not long after she and two other university presidents drew public fire in Congress over their tolerance of anti-Semitic protests on campus.

The other two presidents — from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania — subsequently resigned their posts, although the Harvard president's departure was attributed mostly to her plagiarism in academic writing.

The Times speculated that other schools, including the University of Illinois, that have embraced DEI loyalty oaths "may be emboldened to take a second look" at the policy after MIT's announcement.