UCLA’s life in limbo could soon come to an end. The University of California Board of Regents is expected to decide whether to block the school’s planned move to the Big Ten when it gathers later this month at UC-San Francisco Mission Bay, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. An attempt to prevent UCLA from leaving the Pac-12 in the summer of 2024 is considered unlikely.
However, the sources declined to guess how the regents might rule and cautioned that everything about the process is unpredictable, including the timing. Exactly how an outcome would be reached, and be made public, is also unknown. The next meeting is scheduled for Nov. 15-17, but the agenda hasn’t been posted on the regents’ website. As a result, it’s unclear if the decision would come in an open or closed session and whether the regents plan to vote on the matter.
What we do know is this: The regents have the authority to rescind the decision — and seemingly could do it without a vote or approval of the full board. When UCLA announced the stunning news on June 30, it was believed that chancellor Gene Block had final authority over the school’s conference affiliation. That assumption proved incorrect. During a meeting of the regents in August, general counsel Charlie Robinson indicated the governing board had the right to revoke a chancellor’s authority over conference affiliation.
“For this particular matter, the regents could say ‘We want to act and therefore we do not want the (UC) president or the (campus) chancellors to act in this area,’ and simply assert that,” Robinson said. In a telling exchange, regent John Perez, who attended Cal, posed the following hypothetical to Robinson:
“Without noticing a meeting, without going to a meeting, between meetings, the board chair and the vice chair could act under interim action to retain an authority that had otherwise been delegated?”
“Correct,” Robinson said...
Full article at https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/11/02/clarity-coming-uc-regents-expected-to-rule-soon-on-uclas-planned-move-to-the-big-ten/.
Here is my take: 1) I don't think the Regents are "expected" to make a decision about the move of UCLA to the Big Ten at their upcoming meetings. They could, of course, do so. But there is a big difference between "could" and "will." And there is a difference between discussion and making a decision.
2) The Regents may well continue their general discussion about delegations of authority to campus chancellors going forward during the upcoming meetings. Whatever they might decide on that issue would not prevent the UCLA deal from taking effect. The deal is in the past. The future lies ahead.
3) Yes, the UC general counsel said the Regents chair could act without a full board meeting. But that was in a hypothetical emergency situation. There is no emergency now. And if any such thing had occurred, it would make big waves in the sports business and already be known. Nothing like that has occurred.
4) Yes, the UC general counsel said in public that the Regents could override the decision of Chancellor Block. He did not say that overriding a decision by the chancellor after the chancellor acted as a legitimately authorized agent of the Regents under existing delegations of authority at the time would not lead to costly litigation against the Regents. There is a difference between "could" and "should." Although there were some issues as to whether the chancellor - as a matter of courtesy - might have given the Regents more advance notice of the deal, no one has said that he did not have the authority to OK the deal. Would the Regents want to exercise their admitted authority to override Chancellor Block and then face costly litigation as a result? It's a bit like Elon Musk trying to void the deal he made to buy Twitter. Yes, he first said he wouldn't go ahead with the deal he had made. But he faced inevitable costly litigation as a result. In the end, buyers' remorse or not, he went ahead with the purchase. Maybe Block made a bad deal acting as an authorized agent of the Regents. But at this point, what would it cost not to go ahead?
5) It's well to keep in mind that the deal became an issue because the governor, as an ex officio Regent, suddenly made a fuss about it. His fuss could well be interpreted as part of not-so-hidden campaigning for president. Perhaps he thought taking a prominent position on college sports would appeal to Joe Six-Pack. Whatever, he seems to have moved on since his initial fuss. So, the political pressure on the Regents to do something has subsided.
In short, let's wait for the Regents' agenda to be published - probably this weekend - and then wait for the actual meetings.
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https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/speculation.mp3
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