At this point, the news of the UMass system’s purchase of the Mount Ida College campus in Newton, Massachusetts, is well known to the UMass Amherst community. Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy justifies the purchase by proposing a satellite campus for UMass Amherst students to more easily pursue internships in Boston, as well as a more convenient location for alumni to connect with their school.

Many are also aware that the Mount Ida student population is being relocated to UMass Dartmouth--which some have pointed out as a bit dubious. UMass Dartmouth is quite far from Mount Ida; and one can’t help but wonder why UMass Amherst didn’t volunteer to absorb the student body since the institution is gaining their campus.

This decision, along with how Chancellor Subbaswamy has completely overlooked UMass Boston as a viable location for what he envisions, has pointed to the possibility of elitism coming from the UMass system and Subbaswamy himself.

The Facebook meme page of UMass Amherst, “UMass Memes for Second Tier Tweens”, has become an outlet for criticisms of the situation. The following images come from the Facebook page. In addition to ignoring the resources of UMass Boston, UMass Amherst students are criticizing Chancellor Subbaswamy’s choice to expand when things could be done to improve the flagship campus.

But that’s not all--Joan Vennochi’s article in the Boston Globe goes beyond what we, as UMass Amherst students, have recognized as problematic. What we may not realize is that UMass Boston is already struggling with significant financial difficulties; and the debt that Mount Ida’s purchase has placed upon the UMass system has been reflected in even more budget cuts for the Boston campus.

Interim Chancellor Barry Mills “is closing the deficit by slicing away at programs that make up the heart and soul of UMass Boston,” writes Vennochi. “The cuts are not coming from the top. They are coming from the most vulnerable — children, women, veterans, and minorities,” cutting the budgets of centers such as the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture, the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, and the Institute for New England Native American Studies. Day care programs are being cut as well.

“Its students — who make up the most diverse campus in New England — are getting another painful lesson about where they stand in the university pecking order. As low as it goes,” continues Vennochi.

“It’s an education, all right — an education in the institutional bias that tilts toward the elite flagship Amherst campus, which, let’s face it, is also whiter. Some might also call that an education in institutional racism.”

A photoshopped rendition of John Gast’s “American Progress” (1872), illustrating the concept of manifest destiny.

The costly purchase of Mount Ida College for UMass Amherst’s disposal, while UMass Boston’s infrastructure is crumbling, suggests that Chancellor Subbaswamy and the UMass system administrators think UMass Amherst is superior, and that its students deserve more than students of the other campuses.

Further, it contradicts the whole ethos of public higher education that UMass supposedly upholds--equal opportunity to a quality education regardless of background. UMass Boston students, a majority-minority population, have been dealt the short end of the stick.