Dear Commons Community,

Colin Chellman of  CUNY Office of Policy Research has forwarded to me the speakers, dates and times of his Office’s Higher Education Policy Series for Spring 2012.   If you are interested in current issues in American higher education, you might find these speakers interesting.  I have attended most of the sessions in this series over the last few years and have found them helpful in keeping me current with what’s going in policy.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As a follow-up to the Komen story, the Huffington Post is reporting  that Karen Handel, staunchly anti-abortion vice president for public policy, was the main force behind the decision to defund Planned Parenthood. Furthermore, an attempt was made to make the decision look nonpolitical. Specifically,

“Karen Handel was the prime instigator of this effort, and she herself personally came up with investigation criteria,” the source, who requested anonymity for professional reasons, told HuffPost. “She said, ‘If we just say it’s about investigations, we can defund Planned Parenthood and no one can blame us for being political.’”

Tony