I Never Promised You a Rose Bowl? - Part 18

And yet more on former CFO Agostini's involvement in the planning to move UCLA from the Rose Bowl to SoFi stadium:

From NBC Sports: ...In August 2025, Rams and Kroenke Sports & Entertainment president Kevin Demoff texted this to UCLA vice chancellor Steve Agostini: “good luck tonight, next year at SoFi!” The court filings also show text messages from February 2025 between Demoff and Agostini regarding a tour of SoFi by UCLA officials “to see how we would make next season work.” Said Demoff, “Yes will make whatever work.”

Demoff’s employer, and SoFi Stadium, eventually were added to the ongoing lawsuit under the theory that these outside parties intentionally interfered with the contractual relationship between UCLA and the Rose Bowl. The argument is simple; it’s impermissible to induce someone to break a valid and binding agreement. UCLA has a lease that runs through 2043. That lease must be respected by anyone who would be tempted to persuade one of the parties to violate its terms. The concept applies throughout American business. Any contract between two parties must be respected by the rest of the world. That means not saying “see you next year” but “see you when your contract ends.” ...

Full story at https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/rose-bowl-litigation-shows-kevin-demoff-was-trying-to-lure-ucla-to-sofi-stadium.

Straws in the Wind - Part 349

From the Cornell Daily Sun: The Board of Trustees’ Ad Hoc Special Committee completed its investigation of the incident between President Michael Kotlikoff and a group of students and alumni on April 30, clearing Kotlikoff of wrongdoing and finding the actions taken by the students to be "inconsistent with University policy,” according to a statement sent to the Cornell community by the committee... Students and alumni followed Kotlikoff to his car and surrounded it, asking about free expression on campus following a debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict, hosted by the Cornell Political Union. Video footage obtained by The Sun shows that Kotlikoff reversed into one student and ran over the foot of a recent alumnus after they blocked his car.

“The Committee has found that the actions taken by these individuals on April 30th, which included following President Kotlikoff from an evening event into a parking lot and impeding his ability to leave, are inconsistent with university policies governing expressive activity and our standards for respectful conduct, safety, and the prohibition of intimidation,” the committee wrote...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/05/board-of-trustees-concludes-investigation-into-kotlikoff-car-incident-finds-students-violated-university-policy.

--

From the Cornell Daily Sun: Milton Taam ’73 received a persona non grata from the Cornell University Police Department on May 4, banning him from campus for three years. Taam received the persona non grata on the basis of trespassing after being present for the April 30 incident where President Michael Kotlikoff was questioned on free expression and drove into a student on campus. The persona non grata was issued to Taam on the basis of trespassing on Cornell property, specifically in the Day Hall Parking Lot, according to the persona non grata obtained by The Sun. Taam is prohibited from entering any grounds owned by Cornell for three years unless approved by the chief of CUPD. 

In an interview with The Sun, Taam said the trespassing charge “makes no sense.” Taam also said that the officers who delivered the persona non grata “didn’t at all” explain the charge to him. CUPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “The persona non grata order is basically a formalized notice that Cornell gives to individuals saying, ‘you do not have our permission to be here, and therefore entering onto Cornell property in the future will be treated as a trespass,’” said Prof. James Grimmelmann, Tessler family professor of digital and information law, to The Sun...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/05/alumnus-present-at-kotlikoff-car-incident-issued-persona-non-grata-3-year-ban-from-campus.

The latest scam

If you get a message like the one above, ignore it and do not call the number shown.

The May Revise

As noted in prior postings, yours truly is traveling so our analysis of the governor's May Revise budget was delayed. However, last Thursday, May 14th, the governor presented his revised budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, 2026-27. He will be termed out in January 2027 when the budget year is a little over 50% over, and his successor will have to deal with the rest of the year and come up with a budget plan for 2027-28.

The governor spent about an hour going over his proposal of which about 13 minutes was more devoted to his non-campaign for president in 2028. He then took about an hour for Q&A. 

Usually, in our past reviews of such proposals, we start with the macro and then go to the micro, i.e., UC. But let's do it in reverse this time. What about UC?

SIGNIFICANT BUDGET ADJUSTMENTS

• Base Funding Augmentation—The May Revision maintains the proposed increase of $254.3 million ongoing General Fund, representing a 5-percent base increase for the fifth and final year payment of the Compact. The May Revision also maintains the proposed increase of $96.3 million ongoing General Fund to provide partial funding of the fourth year Compact payment as scheduled in the 2025 Budget Act.

• Compact Funding Deferral—The May Revision maintains the planned one-time deferral of the 2025-26 Compact investment of $240.8 million, representing a 5-percent base increase in the fourth year of the Compact, to 2027-28. The May Revision also maintains the planned one-time 2025-26 deferral of $31 million to offset revenue reductions associated with the replacement of 902 nonresident undergraduate students enrolled at three campuses with an equivalent number of California resident undergraduate students, from 2025-26 to 2027-28.

• One-Time Base Deferral—The May Revision maintains the proposed delay of a one-time repayment of $129.7 million, representing a deferral of a one-time 3-percent base increase from 2025-26, from 2026-27 to 2027-28.

• Foster Youth Support Services—An increase of $1.5 million one-time General Fund to support First Star Academy Youth Cohorts at UC campuses.

Source: https://ebudget.ca.gov/2026-27/pdf/Revised/BudgetSummary/HigherEducation.pdf.

Translation: We have a multi-year "compact" with UC but we won't actually pay what is due. Instead, we will keep deferring part of what is due to the future when there will be some new governor and a new legislature and they might or might not honor it. Compact is not the same as contract. The latter is enforceable. The former isn't.

Of course, everyone understands this point. But the game is played by UC thanking the governor and then seeking more from the legislature. From UC President Milliken:

I’m deeply grateful to Gov. Newsom for his thoughtful leadership and sustained support of the University of California over the years. The UC funding included in the May revision will help ensure that the university remains affordable and accessible to California students. As the University of California faces ongoing federal funding uncertainty and increasing operational and labor costs, state funding for UC is more important than ever.  

We will continue to advocate for the resources necessary to help our hundreds of thousands of students succeed, and to support the faculty and staff who deliver the teaching, research, and patient care that Californians expect and deserve. I look forward to working with Gov. Newsom and the Legislature in the coming weeks to achieve a state budget that fully funds UC and improves the lives of every Californian.

Source: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-statement-gov-newsoms-2026-27-revised-budget-proposal.

How effective will the UC advocacy be? The governor's May Revise for UC is about what the proposal was in January, with some tidbits added.* So the governor wasn't much affected. We will have to see what the legislature does in the next few weeks.

===

*See https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/m/2026-27/Department/6440.

===

What about the macro?

Enough extra revenue (revenue above projections) came in thanks to AI and stock market gains to lead to a modest surplus for the current fiscal year.** Next year, however, total reserves fall rather than rise, i.e., a deficit. That isn't what the governor said during his presentation. But that is what his numbers say.

===

**There are various reserve accounts associated with the General Fund (GF). Yours truly had to estimate the changes in the Public School and Safety Net accounts using figures for 2024-25 as enacted to calculate the change in those accounts to 2025-26. LAO, which has more access to data, reports a slight deficit for the current year rather than a small surplus:

https://ebudget.ca.gov/reference/MultiYearProjection.pdf. 

LAO also reports projected deficits out to 2029-30:

https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5187.

===

NOTE: The governor's May Revise news conference can be seen at:

https://ia601802.us.archive.org/14/items/newsom-may-june-2026/newsom%205-14-2026%20May%20revise.mp4.

Straws in the Wind - Part 348

From the Daily Princetonian: All in-person examinations at Princeton will be proctored starting July 1, representing the most significant change to the honor system since it was established in 1893. The faculty passed a proposal requiring instructor supervision... with one opposing vote. The historic vote was the culmination of months of deliberation within the administration and student governing bodies about how to address increasing concerns over academic integrity violations, including the proliferation of AI usage. The proposal cleared a full faculty vote as the final of three required rounds of approval, having already been passed unanimously by the Committee on Examinations and Standing and the Faculty Advisory Committee on Policy.

According to the policy proposal, previously sent by Dean of the College Michael Gordin to the Faculty Advisory Committee and included in Monday’s meeting notes, instructors will remain present in exam rooms “as a witness to what happens,” but are instructed not to interfere with students. If a suspected Honor Code violation occurs, proctors will document their observations and submit a report to the student-run Honor Committee, where they may later testify under the same standards used for other witnesses... 

The proposa... points to a growing reluctance among students to report peers directly. The proposal claims that anonymous reporting of allegations has increased in recent years, fueled by fears of “doxxing or shaming among their peer groups” online... 

Full story at https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2026/05/princeton-news-adpol-proctoring-in-person-examinations-passed-faculty-133-years-precedent.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 162

From The Free Press: In June 2019, the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared before a congressional committee to make the case for reparations. Advancing an argument he’d laid out in The Atlantic years earlier, Coates contended that America owed a debt to its black citizens not just for slavery but for generations of plundered wealth. Over the next few years, the issue had grown in visibility, and slogans like “Black Lives Matter” had entered mainstream political discourse. “It is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery,” Coates told the committee. Six months later, Harvard University took up the cause when Harvard president Lawrence Bacow convened a faculty committee to excavate the university’s historical involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.

...The university then established what it called the “Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative,” which aimed to “remedy harms to descendants, to our community and the nation, and to campus life and learning.” It committed an extraordinary $100 million to the initiative and promoted Sara Bleich, a professor of public health policy, to vice provost for special projects to shepherd the effort.

...One of the Legacy of Slavery Initiative’s first hires was a man named Richard J. Cellini. His job was to find those descendants. At that point, Harvard had identified 79 individuals who had been enslaved by university affiliates, but it had yet to locate a single living relative. “I don’t think Harvard really understood what they were getting themselves into,” Cellini told me. Cellini, 62, is not the sort of person you might expect to do this kind of work. He describes himself as an “Eisenhower Republican” rather than a “social justice warrior.” Genealogy, which is now his avocation, came to him late in life. He began his career as a lawyer on Wall Street, and then spent three decades “growing and selling” technology companies.

...Harvard soon discovered that Cellini was a forceful advocate for his work, determined to find as many descendants as he could, no matter the consequences. Meanwhile, Harvard was clearly getting nervous about the potential scope of his efforts. ...[Harvard's] anxiety was not entirely irrational. Every name Cellini added to the ledger represented a potential claim on Harvard’s commitment. Cellini pushed to enlarge the list of potential beneficiaries by including the names of slaves owned by members of the university’s governing boards—a category administrators had debated. He won that debate—and the pool grew accordingly. A research trip to Antigua, following the discovery of several hundred individuals enslaved there by Harvard affiliates between the 17th and 19th centuries, yielded an additional hundred names from public archives. Cellini and his team also met with Antigua’s prime minister and discussed opportunities for collaboration between the university and the island nation, a conversation that likely did little to reassure Harvard administrators about the project’s scope.

...Shortly after Cellini and his team returned from Antigua in January 2025, they were all fired by Harvard. The university subsequently outsourced the work to American Ancestors, a New England genealogical nonprofit now on a three-year contract. Harvard has declined to provide a specific rationale for the change. American Ancestors has denied that the university has imposed any constraints on their research...

...Harvard, like any institution invested in its own survival, is not about to bankrupt itself. Its effort will likely follow the well-worn path of local reparations programs across the country: introduced with a bang and then quietly abandoned as the logistics and finances prove untenable...

Full story at https://www.thefp.com/p/harvard-reparations-plan-failure.

The One That Didn't Get Away (but is behind closed doors, too)

Unlike our previous post about last week's Regents meeting about the conflict with the feds, we caught this one just in time, since the meeting is later today. But like all the other ones, it is behind closed doors, so we don't know if there are really any new developments.

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: 

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets. 

This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws. On Tuesday, May 19, 2026, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues 

(Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].) 

The meeting will convene at 4:00 p.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 5:00 p.m. 

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Cohen, Hernandez, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/may26/meeting-notice_federal-may-19-2026.pdf.