The Regents Are Coming to Talk About Health & the Big Ten Move

An off-cycle meeting of the Regents' Health Services Committee has long been scheduled for August 17. However, the schedule has been modified to add a meeting of the full board to discuss UCLA's move to the Big Ten.

As blog readers will know, Governor Newsom showed up at a closed session of the Regents in July to discuss the UCLA/Big Ten issue. With the exception of Jerry Brown, governors rarely appear at the Regents. Whether Newsom will attend this time, and whether - if he does - it will be in a closed or open session, is unknown. 

We did note in a review of the Regents' July meeting that closing the discussion of the UCLA/Big Ten appeared to be unjustified.* The official rationale back then was that there were confidential "litigation" issues involved, which seemed to be a stretch. What issues? Since anyone can sue anyone about anything, virtually any topic the Regents discuss could be closed on that rationale.

There will be both open and closed discussion of the UCLA/Big Ten issue on August 17th, with the closed portion again justified on the grounds of possible legal issues. No actual lawsuits are listed, however, and as far as yours truly knows, none have been filed. There have been some questions about travel of athletes to states to which use of state funds for travel is banned because of abortion, etc., rules. But there are work-arounds for that issue involving non-state funds. 

Below is the agenda for August 17th:

Centennial Ballroom, UCLA Luskin Conference Center and teleconference meeting conducted in accordance with California Government Code §§11133

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9:00 am Board (open session)

Agenda – Open Session

Public Comment Period (30 minutes)

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Upon end of Board open

Health Services Committee (open session) 

Agenda – Open Session

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of June 15, 2022

H1 Discussion: Update from the Executive Vice President of UC Health

H2 Action: Proposed Request for Approval of the Parnassus Research and Academic Building and West Campus Site Improvements, San Francisco Campus

H3 Action: Approval of Addition of Quality Performance Metrics Recommended by the University of California Health Clinical Quality Committee to the Clinical Quality Dashboard

H4 Information: UC Health Fiscal Year 2021-22 Report on Covered Affiliations

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Upon end of Health open

Health Services Committee (closed session) 

Agenda – Closed Session

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of June 15, 2022

H5(X) Discussion: UC Health Litigation Update

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12:30 pm Board (open session) 

Agenda – Open Session

B1 Discussion: UCLA Big Ten Membership Report 

Upon end of Board open

Board (closed session) 

Agenda – Closed Session

B2(X) Discussion: UCLA Big Ten Membership Report – Legal Issues 

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

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Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/aug2022.html

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-governor-is-annoyed-about-big-ten_22.html. The litigation justification for closing the meeting is based on a proviso of the education code that reads:

The Regents of the University of California may conduct closed sessions when they meet to consider or discuss any of the following matters:

...Matters involving litigation, when discussion in open session concerning those matters would adversely affect, or be detrimental to, the public interest.