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Thursday, February 22-February 28, 2024
NO. 160
UC Riverside to offer degree program at state prison in Norco
Senate Judiciary Committee has yet to subpoena Harlan Crow or Leonard Leo
By Staff
By Andy Kroll, ProPublica
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he University of California, Riverside, is set to begin a program this fall that will offer a Bachelor of Arts program to inmates at a state prison in Norco, school officials announced last week. UCR will join the 1% of U.S. colleges and universities offering a college degree program that can be completed from inside prison walls, officials said. Incarcerated students at the Norco California Rehabilitation Center, or Norco CRC, soon will have the opportunity to earn a bachelor of arts degree in education, society and human development, with a concentration in social justice. The program will be available to approximately 25 students who have earned an associate’s degree or equivalent credential that was provided to inmates
Prospective UCR students at the Norco California Rehabilitation Center work with university faculty. | Photo courtesy of Kolapo Soretire/NCRC
by educators from Norco College, one of three schools in the Riverside Community College District. So far 36 former Norco CRC students have applied for transfers to UCR. “We are extending access to a Bachelor of Arts degree to a highly motivated group of students who are working very hard to turn their lives
around through a UC college education. We believe a program like this is well overdue in Inland Southern California,” Joi Spencer, dean of UCR’s School of Education, said in a statement. Faculty from the UCR School of Education and
the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences will teach the Norco CRC courses, which will be offered as part of UCR’s approved curriculum for an education major, according to UCR spokesman David Danelski. Course instruction will take place at the prison
See UC Riverside Page 32
By City News Service he schedule for the celebrated Riverside Dickens Festival was confirmed Friday, featuring a range of entertainment at an all-new venue in Jurupa Valley, where a museum property will be converted to Victorian-era London, reflective of author Charles Dickens' life and times. The 31st annual event will be presented Feb. 24-25 at the Jensen Alvarado Historic Ranch & Museum,
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Series: Friends of the Court: SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships With Billionaire Donors upreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decadeslong friendship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito’s luxury travel with billionaire Paul Singer have raised questions about influence and ethics at the nation's highest court. More than two months after authorizing subpoenas for key figures in the Supreme Court’s ethics controversies, Senate Democrats have yet to issue them. The delay has caused outside activists to demand that Democrats press ahead with their investigation. On Nov. 30, the Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve subpoenas for Republican donor Harlan Crow and conservative legal activist Leonard Leo after the two men had refused to voluntarily provide all the information requested by the committee about gifts for Supreme Court justices. “Both Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow are central players in this crisis,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said at the time. “Their attempts to thwart legitimate oversight efforts of Congress should concern all of us.” But in an interview last week, Durbin told ProPublica that he had not yet issued the subpoenas to Crow and Leo. Questioned about the timing or what issues remained to be worked out, he said only: “Still working on it.” The decision to authorize subpoenas came in response to stories by ProPublica that detailed how, for decades, Crow had paid for lavish vacations for Justice Clarence Thomas. In 2014, Crow purchased Thomas’ mother’s home in Georgia. Crow even paid private school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew, whom the justice said he was raising “as a son.” Thomas did not disclose the vacations, real estate purchase and tuition assistance on his annual financial disclosure forms. After ProPublica’s reporting, the Supreme Court adopted its first-ever ethics code, though it’s not clear if and how it will be enforced. Thomas has said that he did not need to disclose the free vacations and that he didn’t report the real estate sale because he misunderstood the rules. Crow has said he has never tried to influence Thomas on any matters. ProPublica also revealed that Leo, the influential lawyer and Federalist Society co-chairman, arranged a luxury fishing trip to Alaska for Justice Samuel Alito in July 2008
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Famed Dickens Festival returns this weekend at new venue
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near Flabob Airport. The decision to relocate the event from its traditional place along the Main Street pedestrian mall, between Mission Inn Avenue and 11th Street, in Riverside was cost-driven, according to published reports. Organizers said setting up security barriers and cordoning off streets required paying ever-escalating municipal fees that the fest couldn't afford. The
Alvarado Historic Ranch & Museum, part of the Riverside County Park & Open Space District, offered a more economical option for the celebration. The schedule for both Saturday, Feb. 24 and Sunday, Feb. 25 will feature a "Victorian Fashion Show," the "Brothers' Grimm Fairytales," replica art of Vincent Van Gogh, the "History of
Mother Goose," a "Les Follies Rouge Can-Can Show" and a "Tea and Strumpets Musical Comedy." The fest's popular "Authors' Salon" will be back, with the works of Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, Sir Richard Burton and others read aloud. Toward the end of each day there will be "Knighting
See Famed Dickens Festival Page 31
See Senate Judiciary Page 18