Nader responds to Connecticut Board of Regents President Ojakian

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Remarks by Connecticut Native Ralph Nader on the statements made by Mark Ojakian, President of the Board of Regents. Ojakian's statements were in regard to the rejection of his centralized takeover and consolidation of Connecticut's community colleges by the accrediting New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

"Mark Ojakian's intemperate outburst threatening higher tuition to students, firings of teachers and staff members, and diminishing course offerings – with a proposed closing of one or more unnamed community colleges— exposed his years of wasteful spending, including on himself, his morbid secrecy, and his bullying of the community college institutions," Nader declared. "He should resign forthwith," Nader said.

"Constantly withholding crucial information for any informed discussion, Mr. Ojakian tours the community colleges misinforming and deceiving his audiences, while refusing to debate people who really know what he is up to with this power grab. He will not, for example, publically debate Bill Curry, former Connecticut elected State Comptroller and later White House counselor to President Bill Clinton, who has written about the dense folly of the Ojakian takeover (SEE: https://ctviewpoints.org/2017/12/14/deeply-flawed-community-college-consolidation-must-be-slowed-down/). Ojakian has refused to respond to two of my letters repeatedly sent to him over the past year and a half requesting that he come clean and divulge information that the public has a right to know, said Nader. (SEE: https://nader.org/2018/04/25/letter-to-mark-e-ojakian/)"

Nader cautioned Ojakian not to make any top-down, unilateral moves to implement the above-noted threat to defenseless community colleges, especially when the state legislature is out of session. Nader called on the state legislature to pass a resolution demanding that Ojakian cease and desist any such actions, while the legislature is adjourned.

SOURCE Ralph Nader