WSU alum and high powered attorney Bill Marler has called WSU admins’ bluff and put up money for the common reading program. After days of attention from blogosphere The Omnivore’s Dilemma will be read by incoming freshmen after all. The administration had said the reason for not going through the program was budget concerns even though 4,000 books had already been purchased. It seemed very likely the real reason was they didn’t want to anger AG interests.
The story even hit the NYtimes:
This month administrators said budget cuts forced them to suspend this year’s program, but some faculty members and students were skeptical. They suspected that the decision had less to do with money than with pressure from the state’s powerful agribusiness interests. After all, they pointed out, the university had already purchased 4,000 copies of the book (published by Penguin Press), which links the agriculture industry to obesity, food poisoning and environmental damage.
So Mr. Marler, a personal-injury lawyer who has received a Distinguished Alumnus award and served on the university’s Board of Regents for six years, figured that he would find out if money was really the issue by offering to pay the program’s estimated $40,000 shortfall. The result is that the common reading is back on.
We have posted about Marler before here and his blog is here.
