The UC Board of Regents is a mini-lelgislature for the university, but some members come from a political background - such as Regent Pérez - and others don't. Those with political backgrounds are used to the idea of "logrolling" in which votes are informally traded. I'll support yours if you support mine. But there is also a kind of anti-logrolling: if you won't support mine, I won't support yours.
There were Regents such as Pérez who very much wanted some kind of positive decision on the undocumented issue despite the legal risks that were reportedly entailed. I say "reportedly" because the special committee that was formed to deal with the issue met behind closed doors. We can only surmise that the general counsel strongly emphasized the risks. As blog readers will know, there are also reports that the Biden administration let it be known that it did not want to be entangled in immigration-related issues by UC before the upcoming election.
What we don't know is whether - with some creative thought - it might have been possible to create a test case that could have limited the risk to UC. Apparently, the theory that UC could legally hire undocumented students rested on its being a state entity. Perhaps, with the assistance of the legislature, some kind of separate non-UC entity might have been created that would provide the employment. A few volunteers could then have been apprised of the risks to them and a test case might have been litigated. There might have been other creative options that could have allowed a test case that wouldn't put the larger UC at risk. Just postponing the issue for a year - which seems to be a fig leaf for killing it - did not allow for a testing of the legal theory.
The departmental statement issue was presented in a poorly-drafted form in which the much of the ambiguity revolved around the question of what was a "landing" webpage. The landing page issue obscured two problems. One is that the Academic Senate had guidelines, but not mandates, about how such statements were to be presented. The guidelines were ignored without consequences which got the Regents involved. One solution would have been to mandate the rules rather than just suggest them. There are other issues with the current guidelines, but the point is the Regents got diverted by the landing page matter. The larger issue is whether departments - which presumably means all department faculty, ladder and nonladder, tenured and nontenured, all students, and all staff - share a single view or must share a single view to be in the department, and - if they don't - would be willing to write up a dissenting view (perhaps angering those who disagree), also to be placed on the website.
A logrolling compromise might have been reached in which there would be some kind of workaround, test case scenario on the undocumented issue implemented by some date certain and some kind of fixed-up Senate rule mandate developed by some date certain, both for a final vote. Such a deal did not occur, of course, leading to the abrupt ending of last Thursday's meeting and a dysfunctional board. Maybe some Regents need to take Poli Sci 101.
====
Note: Here is the official tally on the vote to "suspend" action on the undocumented issue for one year:
*Approved*
BOARD OF REGENTS
January 25, 2024
AMENDMENT OF REGENTS POLICY 4407: EQUITABLE STUDENT EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
A motion was made to suspend implementation of Regents Policy 4407 for one year.
Board vote: Regents Anguiano, Chu, Cohen, Drake, Leib, Matosantos, Park, Raznick, Reilly, and Robinson voting “aye,”
Regents Ellis, Hernandez, Pérez, Sarris, Tesfai, and Thurmond voting “no,” and Regent Makarechian abstaining.
Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/aar/janb.pdf.
No comments:
Post a Comment