UCSF Faculty Association

February 8, 2021
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Sign to Stop UC from Anti-Reproductive Rights/Anti-LGBTQ+ Affiliations

Pasted below is a message from UCSF Ob/Gyn faculty member Jody Steinauer about UC affiliations with healthcare entities that use religious directives to prohibit the use of contraception, gender-affirming care for transgender people, abortion, and assisted reproductive technology (e.g. sperm/egg donors, IVF).

We feel this issue is an important concern to UCSF faculty, and ask you to consider signing the letter linked below.

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Dear UC Colleagues and Allies,

I am reaching out as a UCSF Ob/Gyn faculty member who cares deeply about reproductive rights and the care of LGBTQ+ people. Please sign our letter to UC President Michael Drake that expresses opposition to UC affiliations with healthcare entities that use religious directives to prohibit the use of contraception, gender-affirming care for transgender people, abortion, and assisted reproductive technology (e.g. sperm/egg donors, IVF). 

I believe religious directives that prohibit essential care for women and LGBTQ+ people are antithetical to our UC values, our public, secular mission, and our commitment to equity, nondiscrimination, and care of the underserved. These restrictive systems of care harm vulnerable populations; UC affiliations with these entities elevate the needs of some patients at the expense of discriminating against others. 

In its first eight days, the Biden-Harris administration has issued important executive orders to protect LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights. With this momentum, it is certainly not the time for our California public universities to expand discriminatory care. With a solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court, states will continue to enact policies that restrict access to care, as we have seen with abortion. Therefore, California needs to expand, not restrict, access to the full range of sexual and reproductive healthcare and set an example for high quality care that is consistent with our values.

Please sign the Letter to UC President Drake and forward to other UC faculty, staff, trainees, or alumni. Also, we are not alone in our opposition to these affiliations. Fifty one major advocacy groups for LGBTQ+ people, reproductive health, and health equity/care of the underserved, as well as the majority of California’s federal and state members of Congress have written letters of opposition. Scroll down on the linked page to see their letters.

Thank you for your support,

Jody Steinauer, MD, PhD (she/her/hers)
Philip D. Darney Distinguished Professor of Family Planning & Reproductive Health
Director, Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
Dept. of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences
Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital
University of California, San Francisco

September 24, 2020
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CUCFA’s letter to UC about the Potential for Censorship of Faculty by Private Technology Providers

September 24, 2020

President Michael V. Drake
Office of the President
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607

Delivered via Email to: president@ucop.edu

Dear President Drake,

As members of the Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, we write with the utmost urgency regarding the cancellation of an approved remote/streaming panel at San Francisco State University yesterday, September 23, by Zoom, and the subsequent cancellation of the same event by Facebook Live and cut-off in mid-stream by YouTube. The event, titled “Whose Narratives: Gender, Justice and Resistance,” was sponsored by SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program and the Women and Gender Studies Department, and was to feature Palestinian feminist and militant Leila Khaled, as well as several South African and American activists.

After protests by several pro-Israel groups, Zoom announced that it was prohibiting the webinar – which was thoroughly vetted and approved by the University – from taking place less than two hours before its commencement. The event was subsequently restricted by Facebook and then, after beginning to be streamed on YouTube, was cut off by the company.

Zoom and the others claimed that Khaled’s membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (she is also a member of the Palestine National Council) made her appearance a potential violation of US law. SFSU clearly understood this not to be the case. The relevant Supreme Court decision on this issue, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, which deals with the intersection of the First Amendment and “material support for terrorism” laws, clearly notes that there is no prohibition of being associated with or even a member of an organization, only for providing it with material support of some kind. Moreover, we need not remind you that the First Amendment extends the right not only to speak but also to hear and receive information even when presented by people opposed to the US or its policies.

As SFSU president Lynn Mahoney explained in defending her support of the event, it is imperative that faculty and the university be free from censorship, even from voices that most would find objectionable and even abhorrent: “The university will not enforce silence – even when speech is abhorrent.”

By preemptively canceling this talk, Zoom, Facebook and YouTube – which together represent three of the most important remote platforms used by universities during the Covid-19 pandemic – are engaging in a dangerous precedent of censorship, which will no doubt lead other governments and political groups to demand they cancel other events, classes or content that they oppose. As our colleague Saree Makdisi, professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, argues, it is a frightening example of “what happens when we subcontract our universities to Zoom.” Simply put, we universities cannot allow Zoom to have a veto power over the content of our lectures and classes.

We thus call upon you to publicly demand that Zoom, Facebook, YouTube (Google/Alphabet) and other increasingly important social media-related educational platforms immediately agree never to cancel or otherwise censor university-related teaching, lectures or other events and, if they refuse, to move immediately towards finding alternative platforms for teaching and lectures that agree to respect our core First Amendment and Academic Freedom rights.

Sincerely,
The Executive Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations

cc: Chancellor Carol T. Christ
      Chancellor Gary Stephen May
      Chancellor Howard Gillman
      Chancellor Gene D. Block
      Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz
      Chancellor Kim A Wilcox
      Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla
      Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS
      Chancellor Henry Yang
      Chancellor Cynthia Larive

March 14, 2020
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President Napolitano, please extend striking student health insurance for COVID-19

March 14, 2020

Dear President Napolitano,

The Faculty Organizing Group at UCSC has just issued a very important letter to UCSC’s EVC Kletzer (copied below) in which they call for an act of “empathy, compassion, and responsibility” in reinstating the 80 graduate students fired for their participation in the COLA strike, because they are poised to lose their healthcare coverage at a time of the worst health crisis this country has faced in decades.

The Council of UC Faculty Associations endorses this call and addresses it specifically to you as an opportunity to rethink your harsh opposition to the just cause of UC’s graduate students. You know better than anyone how deep and sustained has been the disinvestment of the state in graduate education at the University of California. Take this chance to do the right thing and begin to work to do the just thing as well.

The Executive Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations

Letter from the Faculty Organizing Group at UC Santa Cruz (This is posted here as it was part of the letter to President Napolitano, but the FOG letter is also available online, with a list of individual signers):

Dear iEVC/CP Kletzer,

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic. On March 13, the president declared a national emergency due to COVID-19.  We appreciate that the campus is taking this health threat very seriously, as evidenced by its decisions to: (a) hold no in-person classes starting March 11, 2020, except for certain classes, and running through at least April 3; (b) suspend non-essential travel; c) cancel meetings larger than 50 people; and (d) encourage telecommuting as much as possible. We believe that these measures are consistent with an institution facing the vast responsibility of continuing to function while protecting the well-being of all its members in a swiftly changing situation.

At a time when we are likely to see a serious increase in COVID-19 cases in California, it is vital, even necessary, that everyone have access to healthcare. This is especially important in the US, where preparation against COVID-19 has not been as robust as it should have been. We trust that the campus is already considering how to meet the health care needs of our community for the next few months.

The global public health crisis changes the likely consequences of your recent decision to dismiss approximately 80 graduate students from their spring quarter teaching appointments. Since March 9, UCSHIP (the health insurance that covers most of UCSC’s graduate students) has been providing free screening and testing for COVID-19. Graduate students’ access to this health insurance is dependent on their employment at the university, so their termination also effectively terminates their health insurance coverage. To maintain their healthcare in spring quarter, dismissed students either face paying both tuition and health insurance premium out of pocket to retain their student status and healthcare, or taking a leave of absence and still paying $2885.60 for UCSHIP coverage. Because both of these options are prohibitively expensive for most graduate students – especially those who have just lost their income – dismissed students are likely to lose access to any healthcare.  Many students, including international students, will have no other option than to return home at a time when travel restrictions may make this impossible. For those students who remain in Santa Cruz without healthcare, their inability to secure timely testing and take appropriate measures endangers the community as a whole.

With COVID-19 bearing down on California and beyond, it seems the worst possible time to leave any members of our UCSC community stranded without access to health care. Instead, it is time for all of us to act with empathy, compassion, and responsibility toward everyone on our campus.  Given that healthcare is not yet recognized as a basic human right in this country, we urge you to reconsider your decision.  Please reinstate graduate students who received Notices Of Intent to Dismiss for spring quarter so that they can continue to access their healthcare networks.  To increase these students’ precarity, on top of the loss of their employment, livelihood, and planned courses of study, is not only dangerous to our community but antithetical to its most basic values.  We believe that we can all agree there is a better way forward.

Sincerely,
The Faculty Organizing Group

October 16, 2019
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A proposal for paid family leave to all who work at UC

The Council of UC Faculty Associations’ board has just signed on to a proposal to provide paid family leave to all who work at the University of California. Most working residents of California have access to financial support for pregnancy, bonding with a new child, and caring for a sick family member. The governor is poised to further improve those programs.

University of California workers do not have this access. Staff employees are required to use accrued sick leave to stay home even just after giving birth, and although biological mothers on the faculty have six weeks of paid leave after birth, all other faculty parents are only eligible for teaching relief, and that must be individually negotiated with their Chairs.

Who pays for the work of caring for those who cannot care for themselves is a pressing social justice issue that goes well beyond the University of California. Apart from the raw question of what kind of world we are making, family leave policy also raises obvious equity issues relating to gender and family form. The University of California should be a leader in this context; instead we are far behind. This proposal is the beginning of a significant push to rectify that situation.

The committee working on the proposal is also looking for testimonials about UC employees’ experiences with dealing with a new child or a sick family leave under the current system. If you or someone else you know would like to contribute an account, it can be shared (anonymously or for attribution) here:  https://bit.ly/2Bd0Li4

It is high time the University of California offered paid family leave that is at least equivalent to the California Paid Family Leave program.

by Leslie Salzinger for the UCSF Faculty Association

October 8, 2019
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CUCFA Letter re: the Academic Advisory Committee for the Selection of a New UC President

Below is a copy of a letter CUCFA sent to the chair and vice chair of the systemwide Academic Senate regarding the academic advisory committee for the selection of a new UC President.

October 7, 2019

With President Napolitano’s announcement of her resignation, effective August 2020, it is vital to undertake a search process that is open and participatory to counter a national (and UC) trend toward secretive top-down searches that look for a chief executive to preside over the university. Rather, we should seek a selection process that develops the kind of leader we need through democratic consultation with UC’s constituents – faculty members, students, staff, and alumni. Disastrous recent presidential searches in South Carolina, Iowa, and Colorado show what happens when a governing board unilaterally produces a candidate whose remoteness from educational functions and faculty they deem a virtue.

Fortunately, the UC Regents have a formal search process that could ensure an active, democratic, consultative, and representative presidential selection. Regents Policy 7101 prescribes a number of steps following from the formation of a Special Committee comprised of six Regents and other ex officio members that consults with the Regents to set the criteria for the search, discusses potential candidates, and participates in making the final appointment. The Policy describes a potentially huge and dynamic systemwide consultation process that establishes four advisory committees representing faculty, students, staff, and alumni.

The Policy calls for the Chair of the Special Committee to invite the Academic Council to appoint an Academic Advisory Committee, our concern here, composed of not more than thirteen members, including the Chair of the Academic Council and at least one representative of each of the ten campuses, to assist the Special Committee in screening candidates. It is difficult to imagine how each of those Academic Advisory Committee members could represent the views of hundreds if not thousands of faculty between campuses and medical centers, across all disciplines, which have diverse needs, and across racial groups, which also have diverse needs.

So, too, it is not clear how the Academic Advisory Committee members, even if they are prestigious faculty members, campus heavyweights who are recognized as speaking authoritatively for (the leadership of) each campus, would influence the Special Committee or the Board of Regents. In the last three UC presidential searches, the business culture of the Regents has disregarded the professional culture of the faculty. The class gaps between professors and most regents are too wide and, in any case, faculty are stripped of decision rights.

The Policy, however, puts no limitations on the activities of the Advisory Committees. They could affect the presidential search by using the committees to prompt campus discussions about the presidential search in the context of the immediate future of UC. All of the Advisory Committees could set up a series of events in which they talk with their constituents on each of the ten campuses. They would listen to hopes and fears, gather ideas about leadership needs, hash them over, and then transmit the resulting comments, recommendations, or demands to the Special Committee. One faculty member suggested a “UC Day” in which town halls or other public events happen across the UC system at the same time. The Advisory Committees would have to identify a deadline that would fall before the Special Committee’s long-listing and short-listing of candidates such that it (and the Board overall) could fully consider the input. Each committee could do its work in about six weeks. The scope of the issue is limited and the reports could be short.

Another benefit of using the ACs as a public fulcrum: the town halls would be newsworthy. Whatever governing boards think of professors, unions, and students, they do care about institutional reputation, media coverage, and what they hear back from VIPs as a result of that. The timing of these town halls would be especially propitious in the context of the surprisingly vibrant national discussion in the presidential primary races of the need to return to the idea of higher education as a public good rather than a private commodity. The town halls could also serve to promote UC’s and California’s reputation for pioneering the original free college plan five decades ago. California’s Master Plan for Higher Education is globally recognized as having served as the key cultural and economic engine of California. We could again be a model and inspiration for other states and the nation of how to provide free quality higher education for the masses.

Notably, the parting words of both former UC President Yudof and outgoing President Napolitano emphasized the greatest regret of their respective tenures: that they should have been more consultative and deliberative with the faculty.

The CUCFA Board asks Academic Council President Bhavnani to form a democratic and representative Academic Advisory Committee formed of the chairs of the campus Academic Senates, who are directly answerable to their constituents. We also urge you to charge that committee with organizing town halls or other public events on each campus to prompt as large and participatory discussion as possible of both criteria for the selection of a new President and specific candidates for the job.

CUCFA is eager to partner with the Academic Council on this path towards greater and more democratic input by our faculty on a matter of great relevance to the life of our University.

Sincerely,
Constance Penley,
President, Council of UC Faculty Associations
and Professor of Film and Media Studies, UCSB

May 28, 2019
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Chancellor Hawgood’s letter of 5/28/2019 abandoning the proposal to affiliate with Dignity Health

We learned today that the concerted and united efforts of many (including the Faculty Association) have been successful in getting UCSF to give up on its plan to affiliate with Dignity Health. This is an especially important fight, and victory, in light of current efforts (some successful) to turn back the clock. We commend Chancellor Hawgood for his willingness to listen to all of our voices. Click HERE to read the Chancellor’s response to the UCSF community.

May 22, 2019
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Faculty Association letter to UC Regents re: Proposed UCSF/Dignity Health affiliation

May 22, 2019

To the Board of Regents:

Last week we wrote Chancellor Hawgood and President Napolitano on behalf of the UCSF Faculty Association to oppose the proposed affiliation agreement between UCSF and Dignity Health. We did so, in part, based on a survey of our membership. We did so while acknowledging that the need for UCSF Health to achieve economic viability now and in the future may require UCSF Health to foster agreements with a range of health care institutions. Our opposition is to affiliation with this particular institution.

Because of the importance of the issue and because of some concerns about the representativeness of our membership, we extended the same survey to the entire UCSF faculty. Seven hundred and five faculty responded and the results are nearly identical to those from our membership. Twenty-seven percent of the faculty respondents support the affiliation, 10 percent take a neutral stance, while 63 percent oppose. More than three-hundred faculty added comments on why they voted as they did. Those comments are available on our website.

As we wrote in our letter to Chancellor Hawgood and President Napolitano, the practices of Dignity Health violate the duty of a state institution to serve the needs of its patients based on their medical needs and the best evidence-based treatments of the patients’ choosing. With respect to Dignity Health, the issue is usually framed in terms of reproductive rights of adult women. We think that that is a crucial issue and ought to be determinative in of itself, but this framing ignores the needs of patients of all ages. For adolescents, the issue of access to information about reproductive issues and to the full range of medically-indicated contraception is important. For adults of all ages, the issue of access to effective palliative care is germane.

There is also an opportunity cost in the education of medical students, residents, and clinical fellows. Time spent in clinical environments in which there is no exposure to all medically-indicated treatments short-changes the trainees, meaning that the trainees have to seek the exposure during the times normally devoted to other training opportunities or forego training in the proscribed areas.
We sincerely hope that the University will not persevere to effectuate the agreement with Dignity Health.

Sincerely,

The Board of the UCSF Faculty Association
Member, Council of UC Faculty Associations

cc. University of California San Francisco Chancellor Hawgood
University of California President Napolitano

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May 22, 2019
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Comments received in response to the UCSF Faculty Association survey concerning the UCSF/Dignity Health affiliation agreement

Because of the importance of the issue of the proposed affiliation between UCSF and Dignity Health,  we extended the two question survey that was initially sent just to Faculty Association members, to the entire UCSF faculty.  Over seven hundred faculty responded.   Twenty-seven percent of the faculty respondents support the affiliation, 10 percent take a neutral stance, while 63 percent oppose.  More than three-hundred faculty added comments on why they voted as they did.  Those comments are available on our website.

The comments are listed according to the position taken. We have also posted the letter that was sent to the faculty along with our survey.

Faculty who support the affiliation.

Faculty who oppose the affiliation.

Faculty who believe that we should avoid taking a position concerning the affiliation.

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Dear UCSF Faculty Members,

We recently surveyed the members of the UCSF Faculty Association about whether they supported, opposed, or held a neutral position on the proposed affiliation between UCSF and Dignity Health.  We’ve since been encouraged to have the rest of the faculty weigh in on this most important issue.  At the bottom of this email is a link to the one question survey.  In the paragraphs to follow is our introduction to this matter.  The paragraphs in support and opposition were written with the cooperation of those on both sides of the issue in order to cast this as fairly as possible.  For the record, while a quarter of our members who voted held a neutral position, three quarters of the rest opposed the affiliation agreement with Dignity Health.
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As you may know, UCSF is proposing to enter into an affiliation agreement with Dignity Health, a group of non-profit Catholic hospitals.  People within our membership who normally agree on most matters are on both sides of this issue.  With no clear cut consensus having emerged, we thought we’d ask you to vote on whether we as an organization should support or oppose the affiliation agreement between UCSF and Dignity Health, or merely abstain from taking a formal position.

The arguments in support of the agreement are that Dignity Health has the capacity to serve as a portal into UCSF’s specialty services while providing high quality care in emergency services and hospital admissions when UCSF is at or near capacity for both.  Further, Dignity Health has a far better track record than most large non-profit health care organizations in providing uncompensated care, accepting Medi-Cal patients, and treating patients from vulnerable backgrounds.  For those who are fearful that UCSF faculty will have to abide by the dictates of a Catholic Health Care organization, we have been assured that there will be no oaths to sign nor will there be a ban on counseling patients on where they may receive services not offered at Dignity Health for religious reasons.

The arguments in opposition of the agreement are that UC is providing its imprimatur to an organization that does not provide a full-range of reproductive health services to women, limits the scope of contraceptive services and counseling available to patients of all genders, and restricts the extent of end of life care.  Because students and residents would be doing rotations in these facilities, during the time of the rotations the education would be delimited by the services not available.  Beyond the practical effects on the services provided and educational opportunities forgone, UCSF as a State of California health care organization would be tacitly accepting that the limits placed by an organization run in accordance with Catholic principles do not clash with our mission to provide the fullest range of evidence-based care.

We ask that you vote on what our position should be and provide in the text fields some of the rationale for your decision.

The Board of the UCSF Faculty Association

May 15, 2019
by Assistant
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We oppose the proposed UCSF/Dignity Health affiliation agreement

Dear Chancellor Hawgood and President Napolitano,

We write on behalf of the Board of the UCSF Faculty Association to oppose the proposed affiliation agreement between UCSF and Dignity Health.  We do so while acknowledging that the need for UCSF Health to achieve economic viability now and in the future may require UCSF Health to foster agreements with a range of health care institutions. Our opposition is to affiliation with this particular institution.

We have surveyed our membership about the proposed affiliation and the results are overwhelmingly in opposition (a quarter were neutral, but among those choosing a position, three-quarters were in opposition).   The specific comments of some of our respondents are instructive.  Other than editing for typos, we include them in the pages to follow.  One of the supporters perhaps states how distasteful the proposed affiliation is even to one supporting it.  The supporter wrote:

“I am reluctantly voting to support.  I am holding my nose.”

The practices of Dignity Health violate the duty of a state institution to serve the needs of its patients based on their medical needs and the best evidence-based treatments of the patients’ choosing.  With respect to Dignity Health, the issue is usually framed in terms of reproductive rights of adult women.  We think that that is a crucial issue and ought to be determinative in of itself, but this framing ignores the needs of patients of all ages.  For adolescents, the issue of access to information about reproductive issues and to the full range of medically-indicated contraception is important.  For adults of all ages, the issue of access to effective palliative care is germane.  One of the majority in opposition to the affiliation wrote:

“Any association with religious-led health care systems should be opposed by an institution that is promoting diversity and inclusion and is science driven”.

There is also an opportunity cost in the education of medical students, residents, and clinical fellows.  Time spent in clinical environments in which there is no exposure to all medically-indicated treatments short-changes the trainees, meaning that the trainees have to seek the exposure during the times normally devoted to other training opportunities or forego training in the proscribed areas.

We sincerely hope that the University will not persevere to effectuate the agreement with Dignity Health.

Sincerely,
The Board of the UCSF Faculty Association
Member, Council of UC Faculty Associations

 

Comments of Respondents to the Faculty Association Survey

The Faculty Association should probably remain neutral, because there are strong enough arguments to support either side. But it was annoying to read the editorial by David Teitel in the Chronicle supporting the affiliation, without to my knowledge, a vote of the full UCSF Academic Senate in favor of his position. Why was the vote supporting in position undertaken by only the “Executive Council”? The performance of the UCSF Academic Senate leaves a bad smell.

The FA should support the affiliation *if* Dignity health is willing to affirm in the strongest legal terms that UCSF providers are not only allowed to discuss reproductive and end of life options not offered at that facility with patients, but also (1) post signs saying so, (2) offer up to date printed lists of services and locations where patients can receive the services, and (3) allow providers the time and resources to make “warm hand offs.”

I agree with the concerns about differences in family planning goals. The importance of this from a genetics and neurodevelopmental perspective will continue to grow and we should not be tacitly endorsing the Catholic view as acceptable. I worry the perception will be very damaging long term. How will we respond if the President of the US tweets that we agree abortion for any reason should be prevented. San Francisco is a target for this type of polemicism.

Dignity health is against giving women reproductive choice. It goes against UCSF mission.

In the current atmosphere of LGBTQ marginalization, attacks on women’s right to choose and the most recent invocation of the ‘conscience’ rules by the Trump administration, I do not believe it is in the best interest of UCSF to align itself with Dignity Health.

Any association with religious-led health care systems should be opposed by an institution that is promoting diversity and inclusion (UCSF) and is science driven. The stated pros/cons are only part of the larger picture. Many of the students, staff, faculty and patients might have an issue of working/learning/serving in Catholic led institution. UCSF as a major leader in health has a choice who to partner with, and that should be an institution that has the same values as our University.

I think there are good arguments on both sides. Devil is in details and I would want to see them before making an opinion. I strongly oppose making their positions on implementation of the end of life option act an issue parallel to gender and reproductive health. Lethal prescriptions are not medical care, nor should we be pressuring anyone or any organization to participate. That, in fact is illegal.

Students can be informed of the religious based limitations and the alternative options can be offered to patients.

As indicated they provide excellent services that are needed and there is no oath to accept or abide by catholic doctrine.

I can honestly and sincerely see both sides of this issue. I would say, that if we do proceed, the learning opportunities to show how systems differ based on religion vs. science and the resulting impact on patients should be a core part of curriculum for anyone rotating through. For patients, the access vs women’s health access issue is a hard choice. Philosophically I am completely against the affiliation, but pragmatically I can see the benefits.

As written, UC is providing its imprimatur to an organization that does not provide a full-range of reproductive health services to women, limits the scope of contraceptive services and counseling available to patients of all genders, and restricts the extent of end of life care.

Look at what just happened in Georgia – the right to choose is under fire. Do not support limits to a women’s rights.

I prefer no association This is a Catholic organization and not a representative of all religions groups.

I do not believe that we can ethically support this affiliation.

“Dignity Health”. Ha. There is nothing dignified about denying health care based on superstition and religious prejudice.

I do not believe that UCSF, as a state institution, should affiliate with a health care organization that has religious affiliations that result in a restriction of care. UCSF should find more compatible institutions to affiliate with that share our mission and goals.

Thanks for your leadership in our abiding by our values.

Putting UCSF’s logo on these hospitals would be give the impression that we accept the limits that they place on access to reproductive care. It would be better if the affiliation was not listed as a full affiliation but rather as a “partial” affiliation.

I am reluctantly voting to support. I am holding my nose. I very much disagree with the position the Catholic church takes on the treatment of women and LGBTQ persons carrying over to the health care that Dignity health provides.

This issue requires more discussion and debate. Thus I refrained from voting yes or no. I am also distressed that the sensitivity of this issue was not identified earlier — before the agreements were started.

If our trainees are to rotate through these hospitals, I would favor an affiliation only if there was no gag order regarding counseling patients on the full range of options regarding birth control and choices regarding abortions.

Whereas I understand the benefits of an alliance with a “feeder” health care organization, and have personally had excellent care at Dignity, I cannot support UCSF’s imprimatur on their denial of full services to women.

UCSF currently seems to care about nothing but money.

The compromise with our beliefs is too large.

I support the affiliation but opinions are strong and emotional on both sides. The FA should abstain as there are good arguments on both sides and the FA’s position is not going to be a major determinant of what will actually happen.

Both positions arguing and arguing against this issue have merit. At this time the Faculty Association should take a neutral stance concerning this affiliation.

The upside of providing optimal care to patients make the merger worthwhile while the students are sufficiently savvy to appreciate the problems working in a restrictive environment but they will have to deal with these problems when leaving into practice.

We should not give up training time while serving in a setting which doesn’t provide the full range of reproductive and end of life care.

I think there are good arguments on both sides.

On balance this will improve health care for many individuals. It is not an approval of the Dignity/Catholic philosophy as multiple alternatives are available.

Dignity has one of the better records on indigent care. I would support a statement after the affiliation deploring their stance on women’s health services.

Opposes unless Dignity will allow UCSF’s docs to provide evidence based reproductive health care.

No matter what efforts are made on our part, patients and the public (and many medical providers) will be confused and will think we are endorsing some of their principles (i.e. it’s fine to impose your own personal religious beliefs on the health care of other people).

Although Dignity Health provides some important services, I am concerned about the precedent of affiliating with an organization that does not honor the PRIDE values that are considered integral to our mission as UCSF.

Women’s health, while important, is a single issue. Dignity is the state’s largest provider of care for the underserved, which trumps the women’s health issue. If we don’t proceed with affiliation, it will limit our ability to meet our mission to serve the people of the Bay Area and beyond. 

March 28, 2019
by Assistant
1 Comment

CUCFA and AAUP’s Statement in Support of UC Workers

The executive board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) joins the executive board of the California Conference of the American Association of University Professors to express unconditional support for the just demands of our colleagues and friends of the Union of Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE-CWA) and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). These are the people who supply the labor and technical support that enables faculty to carry out the educational mission of the University of California.

For too long, the Board of Regents and the upper levels of the UC administration have pitted professors, staff, and students against one another. Despite this, UC faculty, students and staff are learning to come together and support one another in tackling the serious problems they face with our system of higher education in California. We stand with the fundamental unity that binds us together in all sectors of California Higher Education, and we tell UC Administrators this simple truth about their staff:

They Do The Work! Without them, there is no University of California.

Issued by the Executive Board of the CA-AAUP and CUCFA
March 28, 2019