Wilshire Bl between Gayley Av and Westwood Bl: Sewer Service Entries Summary Construction along Wilshire Bl continues Friday, June 26 at 9 pm. Work will continue through 6 am on Monday, June 29. The same work will occur the weekends beginning on Friday, July 3 and Friday, July 10. Schedule
Traffic Control
Pedestrian and Business Access
Closure:   Noteworthy
Metro Access
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When we last posted about the status of state budget negotiations (yesterday), there was no final deal. But now there is, according to the governor:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/06/26/finalbudget/.
You can read the news release at the link above. However, until we have actual numbers (which may take some time), don't take the flowery description literally.
The UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement is partnering with the UC Office of the President’s Graduate, Undergraduate and Equity Affairs and Institutional Research and Academic Planning to launch a pilot fellowship program for UC faculty and staff. Through $5,000 awards, the UC Dialogue Fellows Program supports the teaching of dialogue skills in the curricular context.* Applications will open on July 6, 2026. In the meantime, you can share your interest in the program by filling out a form.**
Michelle N. Deutchman
Executive Director
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*https://freespeechcenter.universityofcalifornia.edu/uc-dialogue-fellows-program/.
**https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9ozG6Fv1aSMN-7T2Ph76ND51ftGKYXsV0lqxaKlg8wx4oYQ/viewform.
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Source: https://mailchi.mp/a0db658dc270/new-monthly-newsletter-from-the-center-16567764.
From the Chronicle of Higher Education: In what’s becoming a familiar exercise, the Kansas Board of Regents just spent weeks wrestling over how to define “diversity, equity, and inclusion/critical race theory” content that cannot be part of required courses under a new state law. The final definition... leaves substantial room for discussions about race in public university classrooms, while still raising prickly questions about what faculty can and can’t teach. Discussions among Kansas education leaders had focused on how exactly to expel certain presentations of “DEI” content and systemic racism from mandatory courses. The final policy was broadened to cover a wider range of courses, in part a nod to lawmakers’ intent, while also narrowing the scope with explicit carveouts for teaching about race.
Under the initial proposal, presented to the board by its general counsel John Yeary in May, the “CRT” element of the restriction on “DEI-CRT-related content” encompassed “content that defines a conceptual framework, as the single and authoritative lens, establishing racism to be systemic within laws, policies, or institutions.” The final version instead defines CRT material as “content that presents racism as systemic within laws, policies, or institutions and promotes acceptance of that viewpoint rather than presenting it as a subject of scholarly, historical, or legal study.” Then there are caveats: “Discussions of race, racism, or the history of the civil rights movement” do not in themselves meet that definition...
Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/professors-can-teach-about-race-in-kansas-if-they-follow-these-rules.
From the Sacramento Bee: An initiative seeking to fund immunology and immunotherapy research through an $8.4 billion state bond [has] qualified... for the November ballot... The Trump administration’s cuts and freezes to thousands of medical research grants last year prompted Californians to develop the statewide funding proposal... The measure directs half of the bond proceeds to a single nonprofit immunology research institute affiliated with the University of California. The initiative’s principal financial backer, billionaire philanthropist and medical inventor Gary Michelson, pledged $120 million in 2024 to launch the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, a UCLA-affiliated research center expected to open in 2027...
Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article316259099.html.
Jason Sisney of LAO reports on his blog that there is as yet no deal. He also reports a deal is likely by June 29 in time for much of the actual budget to be passed before July 1, the start of the new fiscal year, although some clean-up legislation will follow over the summer.
From the Daily Californian: Faculty advocating for the reinstatement of SAT and ACT requirements are criticizing the timeline produced by the UC system’s Academic Senate to revisit its standardized testing policies, saying the process is moving too slowly. The UC Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, approved a roadmap June 5 outlining its plan to research potential changes to admissions policy. The committee formed two work groups: One will study the efficacy of standardized testing in first-year admissions, and the other will look at the UC’s “A-G” course requirement for California first-year applicants. If approved by the UC Board of Regents, changes would affect fall 2028 applicants at the earliest, one year later than called for in a petition signed by more than 1,500 UC STEM faculty...
Electrical engineering and computer sciences chair Jelani Nelson argued the process was redundant, and the topic was already thoroughly researched by UC faculty on the Academic Council’s Standardized Testing Task Force in 2020... Nelson said the proposal felt “tone-deaf” given the urgency of UC faculty’s calls for more rigor in the admissions process...
