The UC Deal With OCR

The Office of Civil Rights (within the US Dept. of Education) has reached an agreement with UC to resolve the various complaints arising from last academic year's protests:

Press Release  US Dept. of Education

Office for Civil Rights Announces Resolution of Complaints Alleging Shared Ancestry Discrimination by Five Campuses in University of California System

Agreement resolves nine complaints filed with OCR against five University of California campuses in Los Angeles (UCLA), Santa Barbara (UCSB), San Diego (UCSD), Davis (UCD) and Santa Cruz (UCSC)

December 20, 2024

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today announced that the University of California has entered into a resolution agreement to ensure its compliance with Title VI of the of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) when responding to allegations of harassment or other discrimination based on national origin, including shared Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab ancestry. 

The agreement resolves nine complaints filed with OCR against five University of California (UC) campuses in Los Angeles (UCLA), Santa Barbara (UCSB), San Diego (UCSD), Davis (UCD), and Santa Cruz (UCSC). The complaints alleged that these universities failed to respond promptly or effectively to harassment of their students based on their actual or perceived national origin (including shared Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab ancestry) and that some of these universities subjected these students to different treatment with respect to their access to campus or university programs. 

OCR’s investigations included interviewing students and university employees and reviewing university policies and procedures, information related to reports and complaints made to university campuses, and publicly available information such as videos of alleged harassing events on campus in 2023 and 2024. Additionally, OCR reviewed 2024 university taskforce reports and court filings about the alleged harassment at UCLA. Before OCR completed its investigations, the University of California expressed an interest in resolving them through an agreement under Section 302 of OCR’s case processing manual, and OCR determined that resolving its compliance concerns to date through an agreement was appropriate. 

These concerns include that university campuses appear to have failed to respond promptly or effectively to a possible hostile environment based on national origin/shared ancestry when: (1) the alleged harassing conduct or protests involved First Amendment-protected speech and the universities appear not to have evaluated if the conduct never the less created a hostile environment based on shared ancestry for affected students; or (2) some of the universities’ responses to alleged shared ancestry harassment may have failed to remedy the effects of a potential or apparent hostile environment and prevent a recurrence of the alleged harassment. 

With regard to UCLA and its law school, OCR’s compliance concerns stemmed in part from the university’s receipt of more than 150 reports about protests and rallies in October and November 2023, as well as complaints related to an encampment on campus in spring 2024. These and other reports included: 

Reports of rally chants such as, “death to Israel,” “[t]here is no peace until they’re dead,” “intifada now,” and “there is only one solution.” A separate video reviewed by OCR depicted a group that included students beating an effigy of Israel’s Prime Minister and shouting “beat that f*cking Jew” on the campus. 

Muslim, Palestinian, and/or pro-Palestinian students experienced unwanted filming, doxing, and being followed both on and near UCLA’s campus by other students and members of the public. 

Reports of checkpoints at the spring 2024 encampment that allegedly denied entry to Jewish students who refused to “denounce their Zionism.” 

UCLA, through its campus police, allegedly failed to protect Palestinian, Arab, and/or pro-Palestinian student protestors while they were violently attacked, injured, and intimidated by counter-protestors, including third parties. 

Of particular concern were reports of violence against students of Jewish and Israeli ancestry by protesters at the encampment and of a violent assault by counter-protestors on pro-Palestinian protesters at the encampment on April 30, 2024, and the subsequent law enforcement response, which the UCLA Chancellor described as one in which students “feared for their safety.” In addition, OCR has a concern that the encampment at UCLA in spring 2024 may have subjected students to different treatment based on their national origin/shared Jewish ancestry, when their access to parts of the campus or UCLA programs was limited. OCR identified a similar concern about possible disparate treatment with respect to Jewish students’ access to a multicultural center at UC Santa Barbara. 

Similarly, the evidence to date showed that UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, UC San Diego, and UC Santa Cruz all had widely reported incidents of alleged harassment against students based on their national origin, including shared ancestry, indicating that these universities also had notice of a potential hostile environment for their students of Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim, and/or Arab ancestry. For example, UC Santa Barbara received notice of antisemitic vandalism at a dorm room and signs posted at a student center that targeted some named Jewish students and stated that Zionists were not welcome. UC San Diego and UC Davis also received reports and complaints about students witnessing or experiencing antisemitic comments or actions by students and professors at protests, online, or in campus departments. Chancellors at various UC campuses made statements to their communities acknowledging hate speech, antisemitic and anti-Muslim discrimination, and/or other harms that students on their respective campuses had experienced. 

To resolve the Title VI compliance concerns that OCR identified to date, the University of California has committed to implement actions, including: 

Reviewing complaints and reports of harassment and other discrimination based on shared ancestry in academic years (AY) 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 to determine if the alleged conduct created a hostile environment and if further action is needed to provide an equitable resolution of each reported incident. 

Reporting to OCR the universities’ responses to reports of harassment and other discrimination based on shared ancestry in the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years. 

Obtaining OCR approval for any revisions to university policies and procedures to ensure that they address Title VI’s prohibition on discrimination based on race, color, and national origin, including actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. 

Training university employees and public safety and campus police officers responsible for investigating reports and complaints of discrimination about the university’s policies, procedures, and obligations under Title VI to respond to shared ancestry discrimination. 

Administering a climate assessment for university students and employees to evaluate the extent to which they are subjected to or witness harassment and other discrimination based on race, color, and national origin, including actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, and know how to report such discrimination. And,

Using the results of the climate assessments and university reviews of reports of shared ancestry discrimination to identify responsive steps for OCR’s review and approval. 

===

The news release above, the resolution letter (addressed to President Drake), and the resolution agreement are at:

https://ia600402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/OCR%20UC%20Press%20Release%2012-20-2024.pdf;

https://ia600402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/OCR%20UC%20resolution%20letter%2012-20-2024.pdf;

https://ia600402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/OCR%20UC%20resolution%20agreement%2012-18-2024.pdf.

Three Times: One Westwood Scene

1934

 

1957

1963 is said to be the date. The cars, however, look to be
from an earlier period, possibly 1953.

Timely Topic (from the past)

Yours truly came across this item in The Hill recently:

"President-elect Trump on Friday said Republicans would push to eliminate daylight saving time, calling it “inconvenient” and “costly.” “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” Trump posted on Truth Social..."

Full story at: 

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5039673-trump-gop-daylight-saving-time/.

Normally, this topic comes up whenever there is a clock change, i.e., in fall and spring. But now it seems to be on the agenda as winter rapidly approaches.

Our former chancellor retired at the end of July with shall we charitably say less than the normal fanfare for such events. (I don't think I have to explain why.) But it is worth noting that Gene Block and Donald Trump apparently see eye-to-eye on this particular matter. In particular, Block opposed permanent daylight time, a position that often arises in the normal twice-a-year debates. Instead, in an op ed in the Sacramento Bee, he wrote:

...Permanent Standard Time is the only fair and viable option, not only for California, but the entire nation. California lawmakers, regardless of district, have a responsibility to residents in the northern part of the state. They also have an opportunity to make this important point to Congress, which might someday impose a permanent time change for the nation.

Full op ed at https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article226884269.html.

PS: From winter quarter 2022, when masks were required, we present more than you want to know about this topic:

https://archive.org/details/mitchell-time-edited.

LAO report on UC-Merced

The Legislative Analyst's Office has produced a 20th anniversary report on UC-Merced. The report tilts toward doubt. Below is the Executive Summary, a link to the full report, and some commentary:

Executive Summary

UC Merced Was Created to Accomplish Several Key Objectives. In the late 1980s, the University of California (UC) projected that enrollment demand would exceed systemwide enrollment capacity by the late 1990s. In response, the UC Board of Regents began exploring sites for a new campus. After considering several locations in the San Joaquin Valley, the board selected Merced as the location for the tenth UC campus. After years of constructing the campus and hiring personnel, UC Merced opened in fall 2004 for graduate students and fall 2005 for undergraduate students. In addition to expanding enrollment capacity for the UC system, UC Merced was intended to help raise educational and economic outcomes in the San Joaquin Valley. Prior to the opening of UC Merced, regional college-going rates were low while regional poverty and unemployment rates were high.

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Campus Has Grown Over Time. Total enrollment (undergraduates and graduate students combined) at UC Merced crossed the 5,000 student-marker in fall 2011. By fall 2023, the campus had grown to approximately 9,100 students. Academic offerings have increased in tandem—growing from 9 undergraduate majors and 3 doctoral programs in 2005 to 27 undergraduate majors and 17 doctoral programs in fall 2023. The number of faculty and staff also has grown, with the campus having a total of approximately 2,500 employees in fall 2023. The campus has completed two major physical build-outs. The initial build-out resulted in about 1.5 million gross square feet (gsf) of academic and auxiliary space, whereas the second build-out (occurring from 2016 through 2020) added about 1.3 million gsf of space (intended to support a campus of 10,000 students).

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UC Merced Student Body Is Different From Other UC Campuses. UC Merced enrolls a higher share of undergraduates and lower share of graduate students than other UC campuses. Among its undergraduates, UC Merced enrolls the highest share of resident students and lowest share of students from other states and countries. The campus has the highest percentage of first-generation students (students with at least one parent who does not have a bachelor’s degree) as well as the highest percentage of Pell Grant recipients. UC Merced is the only UC campus with a student body that is majority Hispanic/Latino. The campus also draws more heavily from the San Joaquin Valley than any other UC campus.

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UC Merced Staff Differ From UC System. Compared to other UC campuses, UC Merced relies more on nontenure-track lecturers for academic instruction. Among its tenured/tenure-track faculty, it relies more on assistant professors (and less on associate and full professors). Relative to other UC general campuses, UC Merced hires substantially fewer academic support staff, whereas it hires substantially more student employees. UC Merced administrators indicate making these hiring decisions because they yield lower associated staffing costs and are thus more fiscally viable for a young campus. As a relatively small campus without the same economies of scale of the larger UC campuses, UC Merced continues to spend a larger share of its budget on institutional support and a smaller share on instruction and research.

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UC Merced Receives More State Funding Per Student Than Other UC Campuses. UC uses a formula known as the “rebenching formula” to allocate General Fund (excluding General Fund set-asides for specific programs and one-time allocations) to its campuses. The formula is meant to equalize state per-student funding across campuses. UC Merced is excluded from this formula, as the campus has not yet reached the point where state support under the rebenching formula, its tuition revenue, and local resources are enough to cover its annual operating expenses. Compared to the other UC general campuses, UC provides UC Merced with approximately $10,000 more in state funding per student. In 2022-23, UC Merced received $85 million more in state funding than it would have received under the rebenching formula.

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Some UC Capacity Has Been Added Due to UC Merced but Growth Has Been Slow and Higher Cost. Since 2005, the UC system has added approximately 44,000 resident undergraduate slots. The 7,500 undergraduate slots created at UC Merced accounts for 17 percent of that growth. While contributing to the increase in UC enrollment capacity, UC Merced has repeatedly failed to meet its campus enrollment targets. Moreover, enrolling additional students at UC Merced comes with a higher state cost than enrolling additional students at the more established UC campuses. The $85 million in UC Merced funding above the rebenching formula equates to roughly an additional 10,000 students that could have been supported at the other UC general campuses, many of which had available capacity.

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Certain Educational Outcomes in the San Joaquin Valley Continue to Lag Behind Statewide Averages. While more San Joaquin Valley high school students are now enrolling at a UC campus, with UC Merced accounting for the majority of that growth, certain regional educational outcomes continue to be relatively low. For instance, though college going rates have increased in the San Joaquin Valley, they have not increased as much as the statewide average. Similarly, the percentage of individuals with at least a bachelor’s degree in Merced County has increased, but also by less than the statewide average.

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Regional Economic Indicators Show Mixed Results. It is unclear how much the campus has contributed to overall macroeconomic outcomes in the region. Both unemployment and poverty remain higher in the San Joaquin Valley when compared to statewide averages. Average wages for state-government workers in Merced County, however, have seen a substantial increase since the opening of the campus (growing by nearly 70 percent, notably exceeding statewide wage growth). Employment growth in nonfarm occupations has also increased in Merced County, exceeding the statewide average, but falling behind other regions in the state.

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Key State-Level Takeaways May Be Learned From the UC Merced Experience. In many ways, UC Merced is like new campuses more generally. For at least their first several decades, new public university campuses are likely to experience slower enrollment growth than planned, rely more heavily on state funding, and devote more of their budgets to institutional support and facilities (and less to instruction and research). New campuses, in turn, are unlikely to be able to offer the same overall quality of academic program for decades. Moreover, new campuses are unlikely to generate significant economic impacts in the short term, beyond what might have been accomplished by other major state initiatives. Furthermore, studies have not determined whether the results produced by new campuses could be accomplished in more cost-effective ways.

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These takeaways could help inform and guide the Legislature as it undertakes higher education planning moving forward.

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Full report at https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2024/4937/UC-Merced-at-20-Campus-Developments-Key-State-Level-Takeaways-110724.pdf.

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The LAO report is the kind of analysis that will get some attention in the legislature and perhaps at the Regents. Note that at least one media interpretation will raise some red flags:

...In polite language, [the report] fundamentally says the campus has fallen well short of its enrollment targets, requires much more state aid than other UC branches to operate, has not had the big economic impact that its advocates promised, and really wasn’t needed to relieve student applications...

At the time, UC system executives were almost universally opposed to placing a new campus in Merced because it would siphon away construction and operational funds that, they thought, would be better spent elsewhere. However, they never voiced that opposition publicly because the Board of Regents, composed of governors’ appointees, and [Governor] Davis were insisting that it be done... In short, the motives of Merced campus advocates, both public and private, had only tangential connections to educational needs, and two decades later that’s still true. UC Merced is the system’s poor stepchild.

Full story at https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/12/uc-merced-campus-awkward-stepchild/.

The recollection of yours truly is a bit different. UC executives at the time seemed quite happy to continue to discuss creating a new campus in the region. As long as the precise location was uncertain, there was a whole collection of hopeful Central Valley legislators who would support the idea (and UC) in the hope that - if they played nice - eventually their preferred site would be chosen. However, there was only so long that UC could play the game of considering and discussing, but not chosing, a site. And once a specific site was chosen, UC inevitably disappointed several legislators from the region and pleased only one assembly member and only one state senator.*

That said, there is no point now in revisiting what might have been. The only choice is to make UC-Merced a success where it is and what it is.

===

*This is not a new opinion on this blog. From 2011: 

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/11/merced-developers-learn-to-be-careful.html.

Fraudulent Activity

You may have received the email below from Fidelity concerning fraudulent activity - unspecified* - regarding the tax-favored savings accounts UC offers. If not, the text is below:

Dear UC Retirement Savings Program Participant, 

We want to make you aware that a limited number of UC Retirement Savings Program (RSP) accounts administered by Fidelity were affected by fraudulent activity in October 2024. Fidelity identified the issues involved, addressed any vulnerabilities, took immediate steps to protect affected accounts and restored unauthorized transactions. 

Your UC RSP account(s) were not affected. However, we want to take this opportunity to remind you of our Fidelity Customer Protection Guarantee and steps you can take to help protect your account(s).

The Fidelity Customer Protection Guarantee

Under Fidelity’s Customer Protection Guarantee, Fidelity reimburses any losses from unauthorized account activity, provided the activity was not due to a plan participant’s own actions. We understand that these kinds of situations can be concerning, and we want to reassure you that our team is here to support you.

Steps to help protect your account(s)

As part of our ongoing commitment to your account security, below are tips and resources to help you protect your UC RSP and Fidelity account information. If you haven’t done so already, please consider taking the following steps as soon as possible: 

1. Review your UC workplace account(s) (www.netbenefits.com) and personal Fidelity retail account(s) (www.fidelity.com), if applicable, regularly. Ensure your contact information and financial statements are accurate, including transaction history, bank, and tax information. Pay close attention to your profile information, especially mobile numbers and emails associated with multi-factor authentication (MFA) and account alerts.

Scan or Click the QR code to view Fidelity’s security checklist and safety resources, including top five account security recommendations, and more.

2. Pay close attention to account change alerts. Fidelity will notify you of any accounts opened on your behalf, as well as profile changes.

3. Report any concerning issues to Fidelity. If you notice any recent unusual activity or unauthorized changes, contact Fidelity immediately at 1-866-682-7787.

4. Take advantage of UC’s information security resources. UC offers services to assist you in managing cybersecurity risk, including multi-factor authentication applications and resources for reporting potential phishing attacks. For more information about cybersecurity at UC, including best practices for keeping your digital information safe, visit security.ucop.edu.

5. Attend the “CyberWellness®: Personal Security Checklist” webinar on Thursday, December 19, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. PT, where you’ll learn actionable tips to secure your accounts, identity and devices. Register here.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Your vigilance in detecting and alerting authorities to security issues is important. We will continue to work with UC officials to monitor threats to your accounts and strengthen measures to help discourage additional attacks.

Sincerely,

Fidelity Investments 

===

*Yours truly is told the fraud was effected by creation of phony Fidelity accounts for minors with the same Social Security numbers as those of UC employees (presumably obtained from the dark web). A flaw in the Fidelity security system allowed transfers of money from the legitimate accounts to the phony accounts. Apparently, the flaw has been corrected and those whose accounts were hacked were reimbursed.

UC Union News

From the Daily Cal: On Friday, Academic Student Employees, or ASEs, of the UAW 4811 completed their ratification vote, deciding 79.8% in favor of approving an agreement to extend the union’s contract. UAW 4811 is the union representing the 48,000 academic workers across the UC system. “We see (the contract extension agreement) as very promising, and clearly the vast majority of our membership agrees given the margin of the vote,” Tanzil Chowdhury, the statewide ASE chair for UAW 4811 said. “I think it puts us in a strong position, and we’re excited to get to the table in July to start hammering out that new contract.”

The contract extension means that the contract will now expire on Dec. 31, 2025, instead of their original date of May 31, 2025. The agreement also includes a 4% raise for academic student employees and a transitional funding pilot program. The UAW 4811 bargaining team initially reached a tentative agreement with the university on Nov. 15. The union vote to ratify the agreement took place between Dec. 3 and Dec. 6...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/uc/uaw-4811-votes-to-extend-contract-with-uc/article_739a5254-b842-11ef-8f2e-070fd45bf4e9.html.

State still ahead on receipts

The latest monthly cash report from the state controller shows receipts through November during the current fiscal year. For the first five months of the year, receipts came in ahead of forecast values to the tune of $3.9 billion, mainly due to the income tax and the corporation tax. For just the month of November, receipts were below forecast values but this gap appears to be due to the fact that Thanksgiving came at the end of the month. Thus, withholding payments for that period will likely show up in early December.

The going hypothesis is that the extra revenue is coming from the high tech sector and capital gains therein.

Unused borrowable resources stood at over $93 billion. Not all of that cash can be used to deal with deficits on an annual basis. But it can be used to cover monthly imbalances within the fiscal year.

The controller's report for November is at https://sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/November2024StatementofGeneralFundCashReceiptsandDisbursements.pdf.

There is a sense that despite the $3.9 billion in unexpected receipts, the budgetary outlook for UC will be constrained. But what the governor will propose and what the legislature will do remains to be seen. The budget process is not over 'til it's over (in June).