You Read It Here First

A ticking time-bomb?

Item G2 enacted at last week's Regents meetings involved investigation and disciplinary processes for members of the Board of Regents who are accused of misconduct, including sexual misconduct (Title IX-type violations). As we noted in a prior post, some of the ex officio Regents - to which G2 seems to apply - are elected officials and major state politicians.* These members include the governor, the lieutenant governor (who officially presides over the state senate), the speaker of the state assembly, and the superintendent of public instruction.**

While there was some controversy at the Regents sessions over the details of the processes entailed in G2 - mainly concerning a 3-regent panel that would have oversight - nothing was said about the inclusion of the elected officials in the G2 framework. As we noted in our prior post, absent some exemption from G2, UC and the Board of Regents could become involved at some future date if charges of misconduct were leveled at the political ex officio regents. It's not clear that the Board of Regents is the best location for such controversies to be resolved. No one seemed to be concerned about this possibility, perhaps because it might have seemed to be unseemly to exempt the political regents from the procedures that applied to other members of the Board.

Perhaps nothing will ever happen that will entangle UC in some political affair related to misconduct, sexual or otherwise, of elected officials on the Board. But if it does, you read it here first.
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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2020/05/title-ix-at-regents.html.
**Other ex officio regents are the president of the University and the alumni association president and vice president. See https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/members-and-advisors/index.html#ex-officio. Section I(2) of a related attachment document says the following: "Applicability: This Policy applies only to the eighteen gubernatorial-appointed Regents, the ex-officio Regents, and any non-student Regents-designate. The Policy does not apply to the Student Regent or any faculty representative or staff advisors to the Regents." See https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/may20/g2attach1.pdf.