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August 19, 2018
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Joint Letter in Support of Librarian Academic Freedom

August 18, 2018

President Janet Napolitano
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Email: president@ucop.edu

Joint statement by CUCFA and CA-AAUP:

On July 26, 2018 UC negotiators rejected a proposal by the UC-AFT Unit 17 that academic freedom be recognized as a right of all UC librarians as academic employees. UC negotiators reportedly argued that academic freedom is granted only to faculty and students “to enable free expression in the classroom,” that it is “a professional standard established by faculty, for faculty,” and that their position was consistent with “AAUP’s stance on Academic Freedom.”

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has rejected UC negotiators’ claims and clarified that since 1972 it has recognized librarians as faculty (Joint Statement on Faculty Status of College and University Librarians – https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/2013 Bulletin/librarians.pdf). Specifically, the joint statement affirms that:

College and university librarians share the professional concerns of faculty members. Academic freedom is indispensable to librarians in their roles as teachers and researchers. Critically, they are trustees of knowledge with the responsibility of ensuring the intellectual freedom of the academic community through the availability of information and ideas, no matter how controversial, so that teachers may freely teach and students may freely learn. Moreover, as members of the academic community, librarians should have latitude in the exercise of their professional judgment within the library, a share in shaping policy within the institution, and adequate opportunities for professional development and appropriate reward.

The Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) and the California Conference of AAUP chapters (CA-AAUP) wholeheartedly agree with AAUP’s 1972 statement, recognize librarians as fellow faculty, and jointly support UC-AFT Unit 17’s request that all librarians be “entitled to academic freedom, as their primary responsibility to their institution and profession is to seek, state, and act according to the truth as they see it.”

CUCFA and CA-AAUP therefore urge UC President Napolitano to instruct UC negotiators to grant academic freedom to university librarians as they rightly deserve and have requested.

Sincerely,
Stanton Glantz,
President, Council of UC Faculty Associations
Professor of Medicine, UCSF

cc: UC Regents

July 31, 2018
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UCSF Faculty Association letter concerning faculty compensation

The UCSF Faculty Association sent a request to reconsider the decision, to differentiate between faculty with and without clinical responsibilities, in the amount of salary which counts towards pension estimates.

July 26, 2018

Dr. Elena Fuentes-Afflick
Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, School of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco

Ms. Maye Chrisman
Vice-Dean for Administration and Finance
University of California, San Francisco

Dear Dr. Fuentes-Afflick and Ms. Chrisman,

We write on behalf of the UCSF Faculty Association, an independent body which advocates for faculty welfare, in order to request reconsideration of the decision to permit departments to differentiate between faculty with clinical training and researchers in salary scale and, hence, in terms of earned pension benefits. This reconsideration should occur immediately rather than be deferred so that faculty with just a few years left in their careers are not penalized by the decision and will be able to receive the full benefit of a higher pension scale.

There are three germane issues.

The first is equity. While we all recognize that clinicians earn more than researchers, UCSF has been built on treating everyone as equal colleagues. This new policy breaches that principle.

Second, the proposed two-tier system will have the effect of having researchers effectively subsidizing the retirements of more highly compensated clinical faculty. Both those with and without clinical training have been at the same retirement scale, so they both have contributed exactly the same amount on their covered compensation up to the point at which the proposed change is made. Because retirement benefits are based on the highest (generally last) three years’ covered compensation, after three years at the new scale (and with slightly higher contributions), the faculty members with clinical responsibilities will have pension benefits that are over 7% higher but will have contributed much less than that in extra contributions to the system compared to their researcher colleagues.

Third, we question whether there is a fiscal need to create this two-tiered system. The stated rationale for the difference in salary scales was that PhD faculty presented greater financial risk to departments because clinical faculty can cover funding shortfalls through clinical work while PhD faculty cannot do so. No data have been provided to demonstrate that this theoretical risk is substantial enough to warrant creating a two-tier system. The information on the extent of the additional risk, if any, should be made available so that the rationalization for this differential change can be transparent. It is likely that such risk is very small given that funding shortfalls are generally for a only portion of salary for a finite period and not a faculty member’s entire salary and would only apply to some faculty for some of the time. Furthermore, the risk is made smaller by another recent change in faculty conditions of employment. Whereas faculty in compensation plans previously had to work full-time, faculty members may now reduce effort below 100 percent if desired. That being the case, faculty members can mitigate the risk to departments, if necessary, through reduction in time. In addition, most faculty without clinical training have had to be highly successful in extra-mural funding to get to the current stage of their careers and have often generated considerable indirect costs for the university along the way precisely because they could not rely on clinical revenue to supplement extra-mural grant funding as a pay source. Track records of historical funding levels between faculty with and without clinical responsibilities should play a role in the decision to differentiate the scale levels of compensation subject to pension accrual.

We also want to make it clear that we are not arguing against raising the covered compensation from 1.3 to 1.4 for clinical faculty. We are arguing that this change should be made for all faculty just as it has been historically.

The UCSF Faculty Association respectfully requests immediate reconsideration of the differentiation between faculty with and without clinical responsibilities to maintain UCSF’s history of equity in faculty pay and to provide all faculty with compensation that is competitive with comparator Schools of Medicine around the country.

Sincerely,

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

July 5, 2018
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Followup with UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement

Towards the end of May, CUCFA sent a letter to the leaders of UC’s new National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, asking for their help in stopping the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” (ASAA) and H.R. 4508 (commonly known as the “Prosper Act”). Last week, Executive Director Deutchman responded to our letter. Our original letter and her response are both online. Below is our followup to that response:

July 5, 2018

Dear Ms. Deutchman,

Thank you for your response to our May 30 letter expressing concerns over the potential impact of two legislative initiatives on the relationship between free speech and academic freedom on our campuses. And thank you also for sharing it with the University Office of Federal Government Relations.

While we appreciate both gestures, we are puzzled by your statement that “the Center is not in a position to engage in this sort of legislative advocacy.” We read in its very first statement of purpose that:

“…the Center explores how the fundamental democratic principles of free speech and civic engagement must adapt to the challenges and opportunities of modern society. Through research, advocacy, debate and discussion, the Center helps ensure that the next generation of leaders is prepared to defend and advance these values,” (our emphasis – https://freespeechcenter.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/)

We also notice that the Center bears the quite ambitious name of National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement (again, our emphasis), and that it is situated in UC Washington DC. We therefore find it odd that a Center advocating for civic engagement and claiming national status would refuse to engage with issues that touch directly on its central mission.

We would very much appreciate some clarification regarding the way you intend to manage and steer the activities of the Center. Our confusion about its mission and raison d’être stems in large part from the absence of faculty involvement at all levels of the initiative. With the exception of the designation of two prestigious academics, Professor Chemerinsky and Chancellor Gilman, as co-Chairs of its Board of Advisors, and the presence of Lawrence Stone (University of Chicago) on the Board, none of the ten members of its Advisory Board is a current member of any university faculty. In addition, no UC Senate Faculty Committee was ever charged with, or created to assist in designing the purpose and activities of the Center, or in choosing its Advisory Board, or its Executive Director. While the President of our University has the right to create Centers, our Compendium (https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/compendium_sept2014.pdf) regulating the establishment and running of Academic Units, including “Centers” (see especially p. 29) unequivocally prescribes consultation with the “Academic Senate.” And it is a time-honored convention of shared governance in the UC System that the budget and activities of even “non-ORU” (Organized Research Units) Centers are subject to faculty Senate input, periodic reviews, and appropriate reporting.

We would like to use this exchange as an opportunity to learn from you how the Center’s leadership understands not only its mission but also its relationship to UC Senate faculty, for we would also be happy to assist suggesting ways UC faculties could be better integrated into the activities of the Center.

On behalf of the Council of UC Faculty Associations Executive Board,
Claudio Fogu,
CUCFA Vice President for External Relations,
and Associate Professor of Italian Studies, UCSB

June 21, 2018
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UC’s Contract with General Dynamics Information Technology

The Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA), of which the UCSF Faculty Association is a member, sent the following letter to President Napolitano urging her to cut ties between UC and General Dynamics Information Technology, a contractor for the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement.

June 21, 2018

President Janet Napolitano
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Email: president@ucop.edu

Dear President Napolitano,

The Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations applauds you for your forthright support for UC’s undocumented students, your lawsuit against the Trump administration’s rescission of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and your strong public statement regarding the Trump Administration’s policy of separating immigrant families at the border.

In this spirit, we urge you to act positively on the June 18, 2018 UC-AFT call to sever ties between the University of California and General Dynamics Information Technology, a contractor for the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. In addition, UC faculty are concerned with outsourcing of the Analytical Writing Placement exam to this contractor who is helping run the child separation program.

On behalf of the CUCFA Board,
Stanton Glantz,
President, Council of UC Faculty Associations,
Professor of Medicine, UCSF

Update June 26: President Napolitano wrote a response to UC-AFT.

May 30, 2018
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CUCFA calls on UC’s new Center for Free Speech to call for the defeat of ASSA and the proposed “Prosper Act”

May 30, 2018

Dear President Napolitano, Chancellor Gillman, Dean Chemerinsky and Executive Director Deutchman,

The Council of the University of California Faculty Associations writes to you as Chair and officers of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement to express our strong concern about, and opposition to, two bills, that are presently before the US Congress and that threaten fundamental academic freedom and freedom of speech more broadly. We are referring here to the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” (ASAA) and H.R. 4508 (commonly known as the “Prosper Act”), especially sections 601, 604, and 629.

The ASAA is aimed at silencing criticism of Israel and Palestine advocacy on college campuses. If passed it would require the Department of Education to use the widely criticized State Department definition of anti-Semitism in evaluating whether or not a school has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As you will recall, in adopting the University of California’s own “Principles Against Intolerance” the Regents wisely heeded both 1st Amendment and Academic Freedom concerns in rejecting the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism. The “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” would undo that recognition and is therefore contrary to the strong academic freedom and free speech traditions of the University.

In combination with proposed sections of the “Prosper Act,” the result would be to compel Middle Eastern Studies centers to conform to a very narrow definition of what kind of speech can be considered “biased” or “anti-Israel” or “anti-American.”

If the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement is to play any role in the public sphere and broader — and much needed — political discussions and debates around the nature and limits of free speech, it must publicly and forcefully defend the principles of academic freedom by articulating a robust critique of these bills and calling for their defeat or, if passed by both houses of Congress, their veto by President Trump.

We therefore call upon each of you, in your respective positions, and collectively representing the Center, to publicly insist that the ASAA be withdrawn or defeated and for the sections of the Higher Education Act Reauthorization requiring the monitoring of International and Foreign Language Studies Centers be removed from the bill before it is advanced to the President.

On behalf of the Council of UC Faculty Associations Executive Board,
Stanton Glantz,
Council of UC Faculty Associations President,
and Professor of Medicine, UCSF

Updated 6/29/18: We received the following response to out letter.

Dear Mr. Glantz,

On behalf of the University of California Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement thank you for your recent letter. The leadership of the Center, including President Janet Napolitano, Chancellor Howard Gillman and Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, asked that I respond on their behalf. In addition, a copy of your letter has been shared with the University’s Office of Federal Governmental Relations so they are aware of the UC Faculty Association’s position on these issues.

While the Center is not in a position to engage in this sort of legislative advocacy, you may be interested to know that the co-chairs of the center’s advisory committee– Chancellor Gillman and Dean Chemerinsky — are previously on record opposing similar legislation. You can find their Wall Street Journal op-ed at https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bill-to-police-campus-speech-1481846338.

Best regards,
Michelle

Michelle N. Deutchman
Executive Director
UC Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement

April 19, 2018
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Cuts to Retiree Health Benefits Are Still on the Table

The Retiree Health Working Group convened by UCOP has released an Interim Summary of different options for saving UC money.

The Working Group has not yet formulated its recommendations, which will go to President Napolitano on June 1. But it is safe to say that the overall impact of all these “savings” would be to increase costs for retirees.

It can be inferred from the Interim Summary that the Working Group is using assumptions of 7% for healthcare inflation and a limit of 4% for the University’s cost increase per year. The first number is at best a guess and the second is completely arbitrary. With the narrow perspective of such assumptions, the only possible outcome is increased costs and decreased benefits for faculty and staff.

This is a bigger long term issue for active faculty than it is for Emeriti faculty. While the latter will be affected immediately, decreases in University support for retiree health will potentially accumulate over the years. Thus they will have a bigger total negative impact on those who retire in the future.

For those who have better things to do than try to decode the entire Interim Summary, see pages 73-75, which show the estimated amount of money that UC would save as a result of various actions.

Unfortunately the savings goal is not stated. However we can make an informed guess about what kind of cost cutting is desired by OP. The University’s aggregate cost (not including retiree contributions) is roughly $500M. One percent of that is $5M. So likely they are looking for savings that are a few times $5M. So for example, without making any serious structural change, one can get $9.5M by having retirees contribute 20% of the cost of the Dental Plan (now free to retirees) along with implementing approximate contribution equivalency between non-Medicare age greater than 65 and Medicare enrollees. It would be getting too wonky to try to describe here what the latter actually means. The Interim Summary does explain it.

On page 74, the largest potential savings come from simply eliminating UC sponsored retiree health plans, giving retirees a flat subsidy, and casting them into the Medicare exchange in California. The next two biggest potential savings come from eliminating the high option Medicare supplemental plan or it plus the Medicare PPO and Seniority Plus plans and replacing them with a Medicare Advantage PPO. Since the savings involved are based on an assumption about the prices that would be bid to supply such a plan, the savings are actually very uncertain.

The Berkeley Emeriti Association has made a number of requests including calling for a one year discussion of the issues before a decision, which you can read here.

If you think that more time is needed for faculty and staff to consider the options and discuss them with the Working Group and with UCOP, then please use the contact info below to send your opinion to Working Group representatives.

Working Group members Robert Anderson (Emeriti representative) and John Meyer (Retiree representative) have setup email addresses to send them comments. For emeriti, the address is cuceaworking@gmail.com. The Senate does not appear to be soliciting input. The Working Group itself does not appear to have an email address. However the email addresses of all Working Group members are available. Those most relevant for faculty are:

Co-chairs:
Dwaine B. Duckett	Dwaine.Duckett@ucop.edu
Peggy Arrivas	Peggy.Arrivas@ucop.edu

Senate/Faculty representatives:
Shane White	Shane.White@ucop.edu
Robert May	Robert.May@ucop.edu
Rick Kronick	rkronick@ucsd.edu
Bob Anderson	anderson@econ.berkeley.edu
Andrew Bindman	andrew.bindman@ucsf.edu

Please also copy the Council of UC Faculty Associations (info@cucfa.org) so we have the benefit of your thoughts.

Time is of the essence.

More Details

The Working Group document is long (77 pages) and complex. It is for informational purposes. Between now and its deadline of June 1, the Working Group will meet on May 1 and May 14. Thus there are only a few weeks available for faculty and staff to evaluate a very complex issue and formulate input. This is an unreasonable expectation. Under these circumstances, it is very difficult to provide informed and thoughtful input to the Working Group.

The Working Group charter is here.

You will probably recall that a proposal to remove the University’s commitment to cover 70% of retiree health costs was a stealth action item for the July 2017 Regents meeting. Following massive protest, the item was removed, and after considerable delay, the Working Group was formed. Its first meeting was January 16, 2018. An acceptable charter was not issued until March. The first communications from the Working Group came in early April. Thus the time available to comment now is only slightly longer than it was before the July Regents meeting. Again this is unreasonable and does not indicate that UCOP and the Working Group are committed to meaningful dialog.

The interim report offers no policy principle or quantitative understanding for President Napolitano’s desire to scale back the University’s commitment to retiree health. It does not state either short term or long term goals. It does not say whether removing the 70% commitment is still on the table. Basically it is a list of possible cuts and estimates for the resulting decreases in costs to the University; it is about how to either cut retiree benefits, increase retiree costs, decrease retiree choice, or various combinations of all three. There is no discussion of whether or why this really needs to be done.

The Interim report does not address the many points that were made last year in letters objecting to cuts to retiree health and to a high handed attempt to get a Regents decision without any time for faculty or staff to provide input. In particular it does not address either the general point that a cut to retiree health is a cut to total remuneration and thus potentially yet another contributor to a decrease in faculty and staff excellence and then a decrease in the quality that the University can offer to students and to the state. Also it does not account for the Senate point made then that in coming years, the needed employer pension contributions will decrease, and that the savings could be directed to health costs.

It is also important to keep a focus on the quality of the actual coverage. If too much emphasis is placed on the 70% University contribution and not enough on plan coverage, then one could eventually end up with very inexpensive plans with very poor coverage. I.e. 70% of $0 is $0.

March 27, 2018
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The $66 Fix: Restore quality and access while eliminating tuition PLUS Prop 98 K-12 funding

Below is the link to the updated version of the “$48. fix: Reclaiming California’s MASTER PLAN for Higher Education“ that was produced by the Reclaim California Higher Education coalition, which includes the Council of University of California Faculty Associations and other organizations dedicated to affordable, accessible, and excellent public higher education in California. The Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) is the systemwide organization of which the UCSF Faculty Association is a member. This new version is the same “fix” from last year, but it also includes money for K-14 schools both to satisfy Proposition 98 and because they also need funding. Those two needs together require the $66 Fix.

https://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/3930168/the-66fix

September 7, 2017
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Taking a Stand Against Harassment, Part of the Broader Threat to Higher Education

The Board of the UCSF Faculty Association supports the following AAUP statement which was released today, and is also signed by the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

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In recent months a disturbing trend has emerged in American higher education. At a variety of institutions—public and private, large and small—individual members of the faculty have been singled out for campaigns of harassment in response to remarks they have made, or are alleged to have made, in public speeches, on social media, or in the classroom. Vicious threats of violence and even death have been directed against individual faculty members and their families, including their children. A large number of those threatened have been African American.

The threats are often accompanied by calls for college and university administrators to summarily dismiss or otherwise discipline the offending faculty member. Sometimes the threats are also directed at those administrators or the institutions themselves. In some cases the comments made by the faculty member were highly provocative or easily misconstrued, but in other cases the allegedly offensive remarks were misattributed or not even made at all.

In all cases, however, these campaigns of harassment endanger more than the faculty member concerned. They pose a profound and ominous challenge to higher education’s most fundamental values. The right of faculty members to speak or write as citizens, free from institutional censorship or discipline, has long been recognized as a core principle of academic freedom. While colleges and universities must make efforts to provide learning environments that are welcoming, diverse, and safe for all members of the university community and their guests, these efforts cannot and need not come at the expense of the right to free expression of all on campus and the academic freedom of the faculty.

We therefore call on college and university leaders and members of governing boards to reject outside pressures to remove or discipline faculty members whose ideas or commentary may be provocative or controversial and to denounce in forceful terms these campaigns of harassment. Some have already taken such a stance. The response of Syracuse University chancellor Kent Syverud to calls for the denunciation or dismissal of a professor who posted a controversial tweet is exemplary. “No,” he said. “We are and will remain a university. Free speech is and will remain one of our key values. I can’t imagine academic freedom or the genuine search for truth
thriving here without free speech. Our faculty must be able to say and write things—including things that provoke some or make others uncomfortable—up to the very limits of the law.”

Unfortunately, other administrations have been more equivocal in their responses, in a few cases disciplining the faculty member concerned while remaining silent about the terrifying harassment to which that faculty member has been subjected. Some offer hollow homilies in support of the free speech rights of outside speakers while failing to defend the rights of harassed faculty. Often administrators justify their response by appealing to legitimate concerns for the safety of the community. However, anything short of a vigorous defense of academic freedom will only further imperil safety. Concessions to the harassers send the message that such odious tactics are effective. They have a chilling effect on the entire academic community. Academic leaders are therefore obligated to recognize that attacks on the academic freedom of individual instructors pose a risk to the institution as a whole and to the very project of higher education as a public good. As the AAUP’s Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities stressed, the protection the college or university “offers to an individual or a group is, in fact, a fundamental defense of the vested interests of society in the educational institution.”

We call upon college and university presidents, members of governing boards, and other academic leaders to resist this campaign of harassment by endorsing this statement and making clear to all in their respective institutions that threats to individual members of the academic community, to academic freedom, and to freedom of expression on campus will not be tolerated.

Signed, American Association of University Professors American Federation of Teachers Association of American Colleges and Universities

August 25, 2017
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Post-Charlottesville Statement

The UC Council of Faculty Associations (CUCFA), of which the UCSF Faculty Association is a member, has issued this statement and set of recommendations in response to the tragic recent events in Charlottesville.

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Statement

The events and aftermath of Charlottesville have revealed the disturbing connection between Alt-Right rhetoric of violence and the very real violence perpetrated by white supremacist groups. This situation bears dangerous parallels with the way fascist movements came to power in 20^th-century Europe. Historically, fascism takes root in the public demand for a strong government to restore order following the unrest and violence provoked by ultra nationalist organizations precipitating violent confrontations with antifascist forces. President Trump’s irresponsible and incorrect assertion of a “two-sided” violence has set the stage for a likely reaction by anarchy-inspired groups at the next provocation or implementation of violence by the Alt-Right / white supremacist front. This reaction, in turn, would allow the Trump government to present itself as the ‘neither left nor right’ party of order and security.

Knowing that university campuses are the likely sites for violence to erupt, it is tempting to call for suppressing the right to speak of any element connected with the Alt-Right movement. CUCFA disagrees. We reaffirm our unfettered commitment to free speech, and the proposition that universities cannot discriminate among speakers on the basis of the content of their speech. At the same time, we support denying permission to speak on campus if the speaker or those organizing the speech incite explicitly and/or pose a clear threat of violence.[1]

Recommendations

CUCFA endorses the recent AAUP statement, and UC President Napolitano’s letter in the wake of the tragic events in Charlottesville. We invite them — and the entire higher education community — to also denounce more explicitly the connection among the Alt-Right appropriation of ‘free speech’ rhetoric to provoke violent confrontation, white supremacist violence, and the proto-fascist narrative of equivalence between left and right being spun by the Trump administration.

To counter this worrisome state of affairs, CUCFA further recommends that UCOP make public its criteria for determining and countering a clear threat of violence on the part of outside speakers, and institute an “Outside Speakers’ Commission”—with representatives of the UC faculty Senate, students, campus police, UC lawyers, and other possible stakeholders—in charge of reviewing and publicly discussing these criteria, and, if necessary, of updating them, or developing new ones which would pay particular attention and respond to the following concerns:

What constitutes evidence of a clear threat of violence brought by a speaker or the organizers of a speaking event?
If necessary, should the cost of extra police protection be borne by the University or the association asking for a certain speaker to be allowed to speak on campus?
Should restrictions be passed to what protesters can hold in their hands (i.e. clubs, batons, etc…) entering any UC campus?

Lastly, recognizing the appealing status of all UC campuses as targets for Alt-Right provocations, CUCFA invites UCOP to publicize as soon and as widely as possible among students and faculty the “Ten Ways to Fight Hate Guide” released by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

[1] The decision by Michigan State and Louisiana State on August 18 to deny white supremacist leader Richard Spencer permission to speak there is an example of an appropriate response.

June 20, 2017
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State Senate should reject Governor’s unconstitutionally nominated Regents

You have, no doubt, seen the near constant barrage of news stories critical of the way UC has been managed — the latest being articles about the state legislature withholding funding from UC in the recently passed state budget because of behavior turned up in a recent state audit such as a large hidden reserve fund, interference with the auditor’s survey, and executive compensation far in excess of compensation for similar positions at the state. The budget also redirects nearly $350 million from UC’s core mission as the legislature tries to gain direct control of UCOPs budget. And before that it was articles decrying the Regents’ spending over $250 a head on dinner
parties for themselves.

These articles demonstrate the eroded level of trust the state legislature and the people of California have in UC. We believe a large part of that erosion is because of the closed and insular method by which Regents are appointed — a method that is in direct contradiction to what is specified in California’s Constitution.

For six years, we have been writing letters to Governor Brown asking him
to obey the Constitution when nominating Regents, letters to the UC Regents asking them to follow their own bylaws and not accept improperly nominated Regents and letters to the California Senate asking them to use their authority of approval of Regents to enforce the Constitution.

Three weeks ago, Governor Brown again nominated Regents without following the consultation process mandated by the Constitution. Ourpast efforts on this issue at least paid off this time with several newspaper articles noting the Constitutional violation (http://bit.ly/2rtynSE, http://bit.ly/2sHyi1Z, http://bit.ly/2sMxsk1).

Yesterday we sent another letter to the Senate, calling on the Senate Rules
Committee to enforce the California Constitution by immediately rejecting (without prejudice) the Governor’s nominees. Regent terms begin as soon as the Governor nominates them, so these improperly nominated Regents can vote on issues at the upcoming Regent’s meeting unless the Senate Rules Committee acts quickly to reject them.

We also requested that the Constitutionally-required advisory committee
be more than a pro forma process and that the Senate declare that it will only consider Regent nominees that have been vetted through an open public process, in a series of meetings held around the state and conducted in accordance with the Bagley-Keene Act (proper public notices of meetings with opportunities for public comment).

A more representative Board of Regents would have likely done a better
job of assuring accountability of the UC Office of the President and given a higher priority to vigorous efforts to restore high quality, accessible, and tuition-free higher education to the people of California as envisioned in the California Master Plan for Higher Education. A recent report that we and other organizations released through the Reclaim coalition, The $48 Fix, shows that this goal is achievable in California, yet there has been no discussion of restoring the Master Plan by the current Board of Regents. The fact that it is dominated by wealthy interests for whom the steadily increasing costs would not be a practical problem may help explain the lack of urgency in building the confidence of the public and policymakers needed to restore
tuition-free education at UC.

You can read our full letter to the Senate Rules Committee here.