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May 15, 2019
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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
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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

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.

———————————–

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