Straws in the Wind - Part 51

From The Oregonian: Oregon State University plans to end two diversity, equity and inclusion programs this fall. But university representatives have declined to elaborate on the decisions and said the spirit of the programs — which have been housed in the university’s human resources department — will carry on in other forms.

The Search Advocate Program began in 2008 and trained faculty, staff and students to help hiring committees limit bias and promote inclusion in hiring searches. University spokesperson Rob Odom said the university will now expect all search committee members to “take an active role in mitigating bias in recruitment and hiring.” The Social Justice Education Initiative started in 2016 and provided professional development to faculty and staff around social justice and equity. Odom said over time the university’s “efforts to build employee awareness and skill in these areas have significantly expanded.” He noted that other programs at the university promote similar educational opportunities.

Misty Edgecomb, a spokesperson for the university, declined to comment in an email on whether any layoffs would occur as a result of the end of the programs or whether pressure from the federal government played a role in Oregon State’s decisions...

Full story at https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2025/07/oregon-university-to-end-2-dei-programs-this-fall.html.

18 friends... But not UC

From Forbes: A group of the nation’s leading research universities has requested that a federal judge allow them to file a legal brief supporting Harvard University’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over more than $2 billion in frozen federal grant money. The 18 institutions requesting permission to file an amicus curiae (or “friend of the court”) brief are:

Boston University; Brown University; California Institute of Technology; Colorado State University; Dartmouth College; Johns Hopkins University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Michigan State University; Oregon State University; Princeton University; Rice University; Rutgers University; Tufts University; University of Maryland, College Park; University of Oregon; University of Pennsylvania; University of Pittsburgh; and Yale University.

The request was granted on Friday by Judge Allison D. Burroughs, who is presiding over the federal lawsuit. The schools have not yet filed the brief, but in their request they state that each of them “has received millions of dollars in federal investments in scientific research over the decades.” ...

Full story at https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2025/06/07/18-research-universities-back-harvards-lawsuit-against-funding-cuts/.

Who's In Control? - Part 4

With the Pac-12 reduced to being the Pac-2 next year, a development which began with the departures of UCLA and USC, litigation has developed over who now controls its assets and administration. It appears that the remaining two members - Oregon State and Washington State - have at least won an initial round in the control fight. From a news release by Oregon State: [excerpt]

Dear OSU Community Members

As you know, Oregon State University and Washington State University initiated legal action in September to confirm the governance structure of the Pac-12 Conference, gain access to business information and protect the conference’s assets. In taking this action, we felt a sense of urgency to protect our universities, ensure accountability and transparency, safeguard the Pac-12 Conference, and preserve our options moving forward.

Today the Whitman County Superior Court in Washington decided that Oregon State and Washington State constitute the only remaining members of the Pac-12 Conference Board, granting our request for a preliminary injunction order until the case can ultimately be decided at trial.

This is an important day for OSU student-athletes, the Pac-12 conference and all of Beaver Nation, but our fight is not yet over. The departing 10 schools have announced their intention to appeal this decision. However, we continue to be confident in our position and look forward to working in a collaborative manner with the conference and departing members on a productive path forward. From the beginning, our intentions have been to make reasonable business decisions while continuing to seek collaboration and consultation with the departing universities...

Full release at https://leadership.oregonstate.edu/speeches-and-statements/pac-12-preliminary-injunction-order-granted.

Who's in Control - Part 3

We have been following the question of who gets to control the assets - whatever they are - of the Pac-12 after ten of its members, including UCLA, depart. Apparently, at least one document supports the position of the remaining two universities that they should have sole control:

Commissioner Kliavkoff admitted USC, UCLA were removed from Pac-12 board

Oct. 12, 2023 

Jon Wilner 

Bay Area News Group, Seattle Times

In a court filing last month in the fight for control of the Pac-12, commissioner George Kliavkoff indicated he had no position on the composition of the conference’s governing board. Whether board seats should be limited to the two remaining schools, Washington State and Oregon State, or available to the 10 outgoing members, as well, was an issue for the universities to settle, Kliavkoff stated in his court declaration. But that’s not what he said this summer in a different legal entanglement.

Weeks before the Pac-12’s collapse, Kliavkoff issued a sworn statement to the San Francisco Superior Court in which he stated that UCLA and USC had, in fact, already relinquished their board positions after announcing they would be joining the Big Ten. The statement, unearthed Wednesday evening by the Hotline, is one of dozens of filings in a lawsuit brought by two former Pac-12 executives who were terminated for their roles in the Comcast overpayment scandal.

In the first section of his declaration to the court, which was filed July 12, Kliavkoff states his job title and responsibilities: “I am the Commissioner for Defendant Pac-12 Conference and have held this position since July 1, 2021. I report to the Pac-12 Conference Board of Directors, comprised of the Chancellor or President of each member institution.“ The second sentence is accompanied by the following annotation: “The University of California, Los Angeles, and University of Southern California, are no longer among the member institutions represented on the Board of Directors.”

The declaration is nine pages long and concludes, “I declare under penalty of perjury pursuant to the laws of the United States of America and the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct.” It is signed by Kliavkoff.

A source called the development potentially “significant” in the lawsuit brought by Washington State and Oregon State against the conference over control of the governing board. It shows Kliavkoff, under penalty of perjury, acknowledging that announced departures to other conferences trigger removal from the Pac-12’s board — exactly the point Washington State and Oregon State are arguing in their lawsuit. The two schools left behind in the realignment game contend the 10 outbound members gave what conference bylaws call “notice of withdrawal” upon announcing their moves to new leagues. As a result, the Cougars and Beavers believe they should be the only remaining members of the board. The lawsuit, filed Sept. 11 against the Pac-12, attempts to gain judicial clarity on the matter.

Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/wsu-cougar-football/commissioner-kliavkoff-admitted-usc-ucla-were-removed-from-pac-12-board/.

Who's in Control? - Part 2

We recently noted a lawsuit by the U of Washington in which UCLA seems to be a ally-by-proxy that goes to who will control the remaining assets of the Pac-12 after the departure next year of ten of its members (including UCLA). If successful, the legal strategy would give the departing ten control over the assets instead of the remaining two.

As perhaps a footnote to that development are remarks by UCLA football coach Chip Kelly expressing sympathy for the remaining two:

“I think it’s a travesty that Washington State’s not in a conference. That, to me, is a joke. That’s a really, really good football team and a school that’s had a bunch of tradition. And it’s the same thing with Oregon State. The fact that those two schools aren’t in a Power Five conference, or won’t be in a Power Five conference next year — people should figure it out. There’s a lot of really smart people in college athletics, but if we let those two schools not end up in a Power Five, then shame on us. That’s just not right. You’re talking about two nationally-ranked football teams that do it the right way. I’ve got a ton of respect for both of those programs. I hope things work out for them, because they deserve to play football at the highest level because they can play football at the highest level… I’ve got a ton of respect and I think those are two outstanding programs. And we gotta play them back-to-back. You saw what they were like today, and we know what it’s going to be like next week when we go to Corvallis.”

Quote from https://www.si.com/college/ucla/football/ucla-football-chip-kelly-weighs-in-on-conference-change-rks97.

===

*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/10/whos-in-control.html. 

Who's in Control?

If I am reading the item below correctly, the U of Washington is essentially filing a lawsuit on behalf of the other departing members of the Pac-12 (which include UCLA and UC-Berkeley) to regain voting rights for the ten departers. That would give the departers control of the Pac-12 and whatever assets it has. From ESPN:

The University of Washington filed a motion to intervene in Whitman County (Wash.) Superior Court on Monday, seeking to join the lawsuit filed by Washington State and Oregon State against the Pac-12 and commissioner George Kliavkoff. If granted, the motion would pave the way for Washington to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which neither the school nor the nine other departing Pac-12 universities -- Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oregon, UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC, Utah and Stanford -- currently has the authority to do while not a party to the lawsuit. UW acted on behalf of the 10 universities primarily for jurisdictional reasons, as the original complaint was filed in Washington.

On Sept. 9, WSU and OSU filed a complaint for breach of bylaws and sought an emergency temporary restraining order to protect what the schools saw as an "imminent and existential threat" to the future of the conference. The TRO request was granted Sept. 27, at which point a hearing for a preliminary injunction was set for Nov. 14. The hearing would likely determine who would have voting rights on the Pac-12's board.

"UW has a significant stake in opposing WSU and OSU's claims and preventing the Court from granting the relief requested," the motion states. "True, UW is leaving the Conference after the 2023-24 academic year. But, in the meantime, UW remains a member of the Conference, and board participation and voting power affects the experience of UW's athletics teams and student-athletes for the 2023-24 academic year as well as UW's bargained-for contractual rights and financial interest."

WSU and OSU have contended that each of the 10 departing schools' announcements that they will move to new conferences next year qualifies as a notification to withdraw from the Pac-12, which would, per conference bylaws, removed their voting power. That precedent was set, they argued, when USC and UCLA no longer had voting power when they announced they were joining the Big Ten in the summer of 2022.

The 10 departing schools are challenging the grounds for that precedent...

Full story at https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38617609/washington-attempting-join-pac-12-lawsuit-order-dismiss-it.

Still unclear is the magnitude of the assets. But they are clearly sufficiently large to motivate the litigation.

Conference-only

Pac-12 News Release: The Pac-12 CEO Group announced today that the fall season for several Pac-12 sports, including football, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball, would schedule Conference-only games, and that it is delaying the start of mandatory athletic activities, until a series of health and safety indicators, which have recently trended in a negative direction, provided sufficient positive data to enable a move to a second phase of return-to-play activities.  

The CEO Group made clear that it hopes to play football and all other fall sports provided that it can meet the health and safety needs of its student-athletes and obtain appropriate permissions from state and local health authorities.  Today’s decision will result in the start dates for the impacted sports being delayed. The decision is effective immediately across all Pac-12 member universities and was made following a meeting of the Pac-12 CEO Group (Friday)...

Full release at https://pac-12.com/article/2020/07/10/pac-12-ceo-group-announces-decision-schedule-conference-only-play-several-fall

Note (from the release): The Conference comprises 12 leading U.S. universities - the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California at [sic] Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Colorado, the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Stanford University, the University of Southern California, the University of Utah, the University of Washington and Washington State University.
====
From CBS Sports: The Pac-12 Conference will move to a modified, conference-only football schedule for the fall, with an announcement regarding 2020 college football season schedules to come no later than July 31. The news comes one day after the Big Ten announced its own conference-only schedule.

The conference will also delay the start of mandatory athletic activities "until a series of health and safety indicators, which have recently trended in a negative direction, provided sufficient positive data to enable a move to a second phase of return-to-play activities." Athletes who choose not to participate due to concerns about COVID-19 will continue to have their scholarships honored by and will remain in good standing with their team...

Full source at https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/pac-12-follows-big-tens-lead-moves-to-conference-only-college-football-schedule-for-2020-season/
---
UPDATE: Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott has tested positive for COVID-19. The 55-year-old tested positive late this week after experiencing flu-like symptoms and is self quarantining at the direction of his doctor, according to a statement by the conference. Scott is continuing to carry on his duties as commissioner remotely...

Full story at https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/The-Latest-Red-Sox-Jays-set-for-exhibition-15399431.php