On Friday, June 25th, California State University Stanislaus will mark its 50th anniversary the way any public college in a cash-strapped state would, with a $500-a-plate black tie dinner. The featured speaker: noted scholar Sarah Palin, failed vice presidential candidate and former Temp-Governor of Alaska. Mrs. Palin is the perfect college speaker, having attended five colleges in six years, one of them twice.
There is secrecy surrounding Mrs. Palin’s contract and the shadowy foundation that hired her. The CSU Stanislaus Foundation is a “university auxiliary,” exempt from public records laws as well as taxes. It does not provide detailed public accounting of the millions of dollars it collects and distributes each year. The Foundation is said to have shredded Mrs. Palin’s contract, but part of it was retrieved by enterprising students and made public by the press. We do not know the amount of her speaking fee (she usually gets $100,000 a pop), but clauses in Sarah Palin’s contract require:
- Transportation by a large private jet (Mrs. Palin knows all about those)
- Flexible drinking straws at the podium
- Pre-screened questions and guests
- A one-bedroom suite and two single rooms in a “deluxe hotel.”
The Stanislaus Foundation hired Mrs. Palin, a high-profile speaker, to sell banquet tickets and raise money. While tickets rapidly sold out, the odd status of “auxiliary foundations” run from state campus offices has come to public attention, and the Stanislaus Foundation is now being investigated by the California Attorney General.
The former Temp-Governor’s most recent academic triumph was in the Athens of the desert, Las Vegas, where she addressed the learned Wine and Liquor Wholesalers of America at the distinguished Caesars Palace Lyceum. Mrs. Palin is booked by the Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents eminent scholars such as Joan Collins, Willard Scott, and Donald Trump.
Former Temp-Governor Palin has earned $12 million through book and television contracts and public appearance fees since her abdication in July 2009. We have not been able to determine if this includes any income Mrs. Palin may earn when her SarahPAC buys copies of her book-shaped object for free distribution.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Tags: California, California State University, CSU Stanislaus, CSU Stanislaus Foundation, Palin, Sarah Palin, Stanislaus, Stanislaus Foundation
NotionsCapital 
April 14, 2010 at 11:21 am
PRE-screened questions???? There is no end to $arah’s gaul.
April 14, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Almost daily we listen to her trash talk (she is in the league with Quayle and “W”), all thanks to the man who now claims that he never called himself a maverick, McCain (right, tell us another). She spends her days trash talking; it is only fitting that someone found a great place for her contract. I guess some dumpster diver found it.
April 15, 2010 at 6:22 am
Republican investigators checked out Salt Lake City for a potential convention, and were hosted by power brokers and Winter Olympians. Of course 30 inches of snow fell that day so most of them probably stayed to ski. Now on the news SLC officials say they’d welcome a Democratic convention. Yeah, like that’s gonna happen, dude.
It’s interesting that Palin’s book came out initially at $4.95 and now it’s free? Of course that’s to raise circulation numbers. She’ll be a bestgiving author in no-time.
April 15, 2010 at 7:44 am
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April 17, 2010 at 12:11 am
UPDATE:
“Watchdog group sues California university over Palin contract,” Patty Guerra, Modesto Bee via Miami Herald.