It has arrived

From an email received around 10 am:

BruinALERT: A demonstration with encampments formed early this morning (Thursday, April 25) in Royce Quad.

We’re actively monitoring this situation to support a safe and peaceful campus environment that respects our community’s right to free expression while minimizing disruption to our teaching and learning mission.

At this time, the typical campus teaching and learning activities will continue as usual and classes will be held as planned.

Access to Royce Hall and Powell Library has been restricted. Students who need to access Royce Hall should be ready to show their Bruin Card for entry.

For more information about emergencies at UCLA, please visit https://bso.ucla.edu/.

Circumventing the Regents - Part 3

We have previously blogged about a legislative attempt to have UC do what the Regents ultimately voted against doing: opening jobs to undocumented students. LAist carries a detailed account of what led UC and the Regents to drop the effort to change its internal rules to accommodate such job openings.

...UC President Michael Drake "basically put the fear of God in everybody in saying that we were going to get sued, we were going to lose all this money,” UC Regent Jose Hernandez [said]...

Included in the account is a letter from UC to the legislative committee involved laying out its legal position:

April 3, 2024

The Honorable Mike Fong Chair, 

Assembly Higher Education Committee 

1020 N Street, Room 173 Sacramento, CA 95814 

RE: AB 2586 (Alvarez), as amended on April 1, 2024 Scheduled for hearing in the Assembly Higher Education Committee on April 9, 2024 

Position: CONCERN 

Dear Chair Fong, The University of California has a long history of supporting undocumented students by advocating for and enacting numerous programs and policies that assist them in achieving their educational goals. For example, the University has campus-based support centers, provides access to legal services, and supplies financial aid to students not eligible for federal loans (Dream Loan Program). The University also continues to advocate for state and federal policies that bring in additional resources and funding for undocumented students. The aim of AB 2586 is to address employment opportunities for undocumented students in higher education. This is a critically important issue to the University and President Michael Drake has stated his public support for finding a robust legal path to do so. 

Last year, a working group of the Regents of the University of California studied this issue and sought a legal path forward. However, after receiving advice from both inside and outside legal counsel, we concluded that there were considerable risks for the University and the students we aim to support. This led the Regents to postpone further action until next year while we continue to examine ways to expand undocumented students’ access to equitable educational experiences. 

While the University supports the author’s aim to provide equitable student employment opportunities, there are outstanding concerns about AB 2586 and how to implement such a policy. Those concerns include: 

- The exposure of our undocumented students and their families to the possibility of criminal prosecution or deportation; 

- The possibility of employees involved in the hiring process (i.e., faculty, human resources, and legal professionals) being subject to criminal or civil prosecution if they knowingly participate in practices deemed impermissible under federal law; 

- Civil fines, criminal penalties, or debarment from federal contracting if the University is in violation of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA); and 

- The potential loss of billions of dollars in existing federal contracts and grants that are conditional on IRCA compliance. Unfortunately, AB 2586 does not protect our undocumented students or employees from prosecution, nor does it protect the University from the risk of potentially losing billions in federal dollars. While the University is not opposed to AB 2586, or the goal to provide employment opportunities to undocumented students, we share the concerns above because we would welcome working with the author and Legislature on other legal options to support these students.

In the meantime, the University is rolling out a new fellowship program that will provide experiential learning opportunities and financial support to undocumented students, and we would be pleased to share additional details on this exciting effort. 

Thank you for your consideration. If you have any questions about the University’s concerns regarding AB 2586, please contact me at 916-445-5579. 

Sincerely, Mario Guerrero Legislative Director 

cc: Vice Chair and Members, Assembly Higher Education Assemblymember David Alvarez, President Michael Drake

Source: https://laist.com/news/education/uc-pledged-to-let-undocumented-students-get-jobs-then-changed-course-whats-next.

 

Not Together

On Monday, we noted an interfaith get together, part of an effort at UCLA to avoid the kind of turmoil now roiling Columbia and some other universities.*

While such efforts at UCLA are Good Things to be applauded, there are still issues on campus, apparently centered in the Med School, according to some faculty there who testified at the Regents during the public comments segment on April 10th. See below:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-yETpjZt2c.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/04/get-together.html.

Apples to Apples

UC is planning to embark on a "total remuneration" study of faculty pay, i.e., a study that compares the total value of salary and benefits with those of other universities. While salary comparisons are relatively easy, valuing the various benefits that are offered is more complicated. The Academic Senate is insisting that the survey be done using the same methodology as an earlier study done ten years ago, an apples-to-apples approach.

 ...The Senate believes that it is critical for the 2024 results for faculty be compared directly with the 2014 results to determine precisely how UC’s total remuneration competitiveness was affected by adopting the 2016 Retirement Tier and its PEPRA cap. The only way that a valid comparison can be made is to replicate the methodology used in the 2014 study. To fail to do so would confound the effects of retirement plan changes with changes in study methods, likely yielding erroneous estimates of the effect of retirement plan changes on UC’s competitiveness. The Senate will not accept the results of a confounded study.

Second, because the recruitment of outstanding faculty is more of a campus-based process than a systemwide process, the Senate has asked for a breakdown of total remuneration by campus. Divisional Senates want to know how their total remuneration has changed over the past ten years, not only relative to external peers, but also to other UC campuses. Again, no such valid comparisons can be made unless the methodology for the 2024 study mirrors the 2014 study, where data for each UC employee occupies a row of a spreadsheet...

Full statement at https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/reports/js-cl-total-remuneration-study-2024.pdf.

The sentence saying the Senate won't accept a study with changed methodology is pretty definitive. If anyone was planning a change, all we can say is how do you like them apples?

Or direct to https://www.tiktok.com/@englishmakesnosense/video/7095855518572399915.

The Regents are meeting Friday

The Regents are now scheduled for a closed-door meeting about you-know-what.

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/april262024.html. 

Mysterian - Part 2

We recently posted about issues people were having with enrolling or staying enrolled with Experian, the credit rating service.* A blog reader emailed me with concerns about the more general issue of being enrolled with Experian. My response:

The university has made you eligible to enroll with Experian for free. It hasn't enrolled you. That is your choice. So if you don't want to enroll, you don't have to. Normally, people who choose to enroll with Experian pay for the service. If you choose to enroll, you get it free - presumably at the university's expense. It is true that when you enroll, you have to give personal information such as your Social Security number. But Experian already has that information. Anyone who has ever gotten a credit card, mortgage, etc., is already recorded at Experian and the other credit rating companies. So, giving the information when you enroll is essentially an ID check to see if you are really who you say you are. 

What I would suggest doing, whether you enroll or not, is to freeze your credit. You don't need to enroll to freeze your credit. Thanks to the various data breaches that have occurred at UC and elsewhere, bad actors already have your information. Freezing your credit will make identity theft less likely. Freezing your credit won't 100% stop all forms of fraud, but it will help. The downside of freezing your credit is that if you need to do something such as obtain a new credit card, you have to unfreeze temporarily, which can be a nuisance. I personally have frozen my credit - long before the more recent breaches - and have enrolled with Experian.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/04/mysterian.html.

New Title IX Regs

New tentative regulations regarding Title IX (sexual harassment and assault) are now out. From Higher Ed Dive: 

The U.S. Department of Education on Friday issued its long-awaited Title IX rule, which for the first time enshrines protections for LGBTQI+ students and employees, as well as pregnant students and employees, under the civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs... 

Among other changes, the new rule defines sex-based harassment as including harassment based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy and related conditions, and gender identity and sexual orientation. It cements federal protections for LGTBQI+ students and employees that have swung between administrations for over a decade.

The regulations also broaden the conditions triggering Title IX protections by changing the definition of sex-based harassment from conduct that is “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive,” to either “severe or pervasive” conduct that must be considered both “subjectively and objectively offensive.” 

The new regulations also:

• Require that schools assume an accused student is innocent at the outset of an investigation.
• Give schools the ability to offer an informal resolution process, except in cases of student allegations against employees. 
• Require schools to provide breastfeeding rooms for students and employees.
• Protect students and employees with medical conditions related to, or who are recovering from, termination of pregnancy. 
• Revive the single-investigator model, which allows an individual to serve as both the case decision-maker and Title IX investigator.
• Provide more discretion to schools and colleges to tailor Title IX policies based on their size, age of students, and administrative structures. 
• Make questioning at live hearings optional for colleges and universities.
• Have institutions largely rely on the “preponderance of the evidence” standard often used in civil lawsuits, making optional the “clear and convincing” standard.
• Change the definitions and requirements of a complaint to allow oral requests and not require signatures.
• Slightly narrow the previously widened pool of employees who must notify the Title IX coordinator of discriminatory conduct to excludeconfidential employees, such as guidance counselors or sexual assault response center staff.
• Provide postsecondary institutions flexibility to set their own reasonable time frames to allow parties to review and respond to evidence.
• Removes written notice requirements in elementary and secondary schools...

Source: https://www.highereddive.com/news/education-department-final-title-ix-rule-2024-2022-lgbtq-protections/713684/.

As we have noted before, decisions under Title IX get in trouble with the outside courts when they seem to depart from due process as courts understand the concept. Combining the investigator and decision maker is something that could trigger such concerns. Not having questioning at live hearings could be another. As we have pointed out, courts have a long history of deferring to grievance arbitration as long found in union-management settings including in higher ed because it is seen as providing reasonable due process. Emulating that system, which features decisions by an outside neutral would best insulate Title IX cases from external reversal.