Straws in the Wind - Part 417

From Inside Higher Ed: Colorado is the latest state targeted by the Department of Justice for its in-state tuition policies for undocumented students. The DOJ has sued 14 other states for allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition, three of which quickly agreed to end those policies. One case was dismissed and another ended in a win for the DOJ in federal court. Colorado passed a law in 2013 establishing that undocumented students could qualify for in-state tuition if they met certain residency requirements or had graduated from a high school in Colorado. In its filing, the DOJ argued that the state’s policy is unlawful because it extends lower tuition rates and state financial aid opportunities to undocumented students that are not available to out-of-state students who are U.S. citizens. It also claims the policy encourages illegal immigration...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/07/28/doj-sues-colorado-over-state-tuition-noncitizens. 

Straws in the Wind - Part 89

From AP: ...An Associated Press review of thousands of pages of emails from University of Colorado-Colorado Springs officials, as well as interviews with students and professors, reveals that school leaders, teachers and students soon found themselves in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, forcing them to navigate what they described as an unprecedented and haphazard degree of change. Here’s what the AP found:

Most students in the United States are educated at regional public universities or community colleges — not the kind of schools that have typically drawn attention from culture warriors. Conservatives have long sought to revamp higher education, particularly at elite universities, saying they are concerned about liberal indoctrination and raucous protests. Though students and faculty alike described UCCS, located in a conservative part of a blue state, as politically subdued, if not apolitical, the school has confronted many of the same challenges as its more prestigious counterparts across the nation.

UCCS lost three major federal grants and found itself under investigation by the Education Department. In the hopes of avoiding the Trump administration’s attention, the school renamed websites and job titles, all while navigating internal pressure from students, faculty and staff who wanted the school to take a more combative stance with the Trump administration. “Uncertainty is compounding,” the school’s chancellor, Jennifer Sobanet, told faculty at a February meeting, according to minutes of the session. “And the speed of which orders are coming has been a bit of a shock.”

...School officials were dismayed when the Trump administration terminated research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation, emails show. The grants funded programs in civics, cultural preservation and boosting women in technology fields. Administrators scrambled to contact federal officials to learn if other grants were on the chopping block, but they struggled to find answers, the records show... “The sky is falling” at the National Institutes of Health, a university official reported in notes on a call in which the school’s lobbyists were providing reports of what was happening in Washington...

Full story at https://apnews.com/article/colorado-trump-higher-education-crackdown-transgender-b40a3f3dfe77d3cb969bcc8a5ab4a61e#.

Who Owns Faculty Intellectual Property?

Back on January 14th, we had a blog post about coming issues related to faculty welfare. Included in that posting was this observation:

"With technology [in instruction] comes questions about who owns the 'intellectual property' of recorded lectures, for example. Is it the faculty member who produced them? Or the university as employer? Note that Regents often come from the private sector where if you make something for your employer, the employer owns it."*

Who owns what is a large question but typically it hasn't arisen in practice - particularly outside the sciences where valuable patents are an issue. Things such as lecture notes have been left to faculty. And things such as journal articles, books, and other creative work has been left to copyright holders. 

On January 16th, however, yours truly spotted an article describing settlement of a lawsuit at the U of Colorado-Boulder. Excerpt from the Colorado Sun:

The University of Colorado and longtime professor Patty Limerick have settled a lawsuit filed by the celebrated historian last year. Limerick, who the university fired from the Center for the American West in September 2022, sued the university in Boulder County District Court in May, arguing school officials were denying her access to her writings and scholarly works. Limerick said she filed the lawsuit after  months of attempting to access her writings. She eventually hired an attorney and filed open-records requests to help identify her work in CU’s libraries and databases. 

The school offered some electronic records but declined to give Limerick full access to all the Center of the American West records. The school last year sent Limerick a letter saying CU “is the owner of any educational materials, scholarly and artistic works” created by Limerick since she joined the faculty at the Boulder campus in 1984. 

The lawsuit marked an intellectual property fight, with Limerick hoping she could prod CU Boulder into valuing the work of its arts and humanities professors as much as it does the scholarly work of its science and engineering professors. The university argued it was not preventing Limerick from accessing her works. 

At a mediation between Limerick and the university this week, the sides reached an agreement “that Professor Limerick does in fact own her life’s work,” according to the statement from her attorneys.

“It is Limerick’s hope that this outcome will protect professors in the future from a similar ordeal,” reads a statement from her attorney announcing that she has “prevailed in a settlement of the case.” ...

Full article at https://coloradosun.com/2025/01/16/patty-limerick-cu-boulder-lawsuit-settled/.

In short, as we noted in the earlier posting, the issue of who owns what in higher ed remains open, particularly with the rise in use of online education and use of technology to deliver instruction.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/01/things-to-consider.html.

Lax recruitment practices and supervision

UCLA's football recruitment practices have come under scrutiny after some high school students who seem to have been part of unofficial recruitment were implicated in thefts from a Rose Bowl locker room. From the Pasadena Star-News:

Four Beaumont High School students are suspects in the Rose Bowl locker room thefts during the Oct. 28 game between Colorado and UCLA, authorities said Monday. No one has been arrested, said Lisa Derderian, spokeswoman for the city of Pasadena. Police referred the case to the District Attorney’s Office that handles juvenile cases, she added.

She couldn’t immediately confirm media reports that the suspects were recruits to UCLA and were on a visit that day. UCLA did say individuals tied to the case were not on an official visit. Beaumont Unified School District officials also did not confirm if the students are football players at the school. "We are disappointed and disheartened to hear of the alleged involvement of Beaumont High School students in the incident at the UCLA-Colorado football game on Oct. 28," Alex Sponheim, who oversees the Communications Department at the district, said in an email.

“We strive to promote strong character and integrity in our students, and the alleged actions do not represent our core values as a school, district, and community,” she said.

While the students were not at the football game as part of a school-sponsored event, Sponheim said the district is cooperating fully with Pasadena Police investigation. “As this is still an ongoing investigation, we cannot confirm anything other than that the individuals in question were not on an official visit,” UCLA Athletics said in a statement...

Full article at https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2023/11/13/4-beaumont-high-students-identified-as-suspects-in-rose-bowl-locker-room-thefts/.

An LA Times article notes that the official/unofficial visit distinction may have something to do with NCAA rules:

...The NCAA allows unlimited official visits by players to Division I schools, although only one visit is allowed per school, which can pay for transportation to and from the campus, lodging throughout the visit, three meals a day and three tickets to a home sports event. Often, players from high schools near a university take unofficial visits...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2023-11-14/stolen-valuables-recovered-ucla-colorado-game-rose-bowl-beaumont-high-recruits-police.

Also from the LA Times:

...UCLA provides security to the home and visitor locker rooms during games at the Rose Bowl... [UCLA football coach Chip]Kelly said “a lot” of recruits were at the game and the Rose Bowl gives them badges to identify themselves...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2023-11-14/stolen-valuables-recovered-ucla-colorado-game-rose-bowl-beaumont-high-recruits-police.

Things Change - Part 4 (Hints on what the Regents Discussed)

The San Francisco Chronicle carries a story about the closed-door meeting of the Regents dealing with the collapsing Pac-12 and its impact on UC-Berkeley:

UC Regents take no action as Cal mulls the future of its athletics

Steve Kroner, Aug. 9, 2023  Updated: Aug. 10, 2023 

Tuesday’s closed meeting of the UC Regents talking with Cal Chancellor Carol Christ and UC President Michael Drake about the future of Cal Athletics was a discussion about how they got here and what the options are going forward, a source confirmed to The Chronicle on Wednesday.

The teleconference lasted approximately an hour. No actions were taken as Cal tries to find a conference home beginning with the 2024-25 school year. Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State are the lone Pac-12 schools that don’t have a conference affiliation set for next year. UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington will move to the Big Ten. Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah will join the Big 12.

The source confirmed that the four main options discussed in general terms for Cal are joining the ACC, the Big Ten or the Mountain West or, as a distant last resort, becoming an independent.

The notion of Cal and Stanford joining the ACC took a hit Wednesday night when both the Associated Press and ESPN reported that ACC presidents opted not to vote on whether to invite the Bay Area schools, apparently because it was clear there weren’t enough votes (12 of 15 were needed) for the additions of Cal and Stanford. 

Earlier on Wednesday, there were reports that Notre Dame — which is an ACC member in all sports but football — was pushing for the conference to make an offer to Cal and Stanford, but that wasn’t enough, at least on Wednesday night. The ACC reportedly also is considering SMU.

In December, when the UC Regents approved UCLA’s move to the Big Ten, they forced UCLA to pay Cal anywhere from $2 million to $10 million per year beginning in 2024. The thought being that because the departures of UCLA and USC from the Pac-12 would cost the conference a significant amount of money in its next media-rights deal, UCLA should compensate Cal. The source said that during Tuesday’s Regents meeting, there was no discussion of whether to adjust UCLA’s payments to Cal.

And the source believes there will not be another Regents meeting regarding Cal Athletics’ future until the Bears get more clarity on what their next step will be.

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/college/article/uc-regents-take-no-action-cal-mulls-future-18286513.php.

Early Warning Signals of Tuesday's Shutdown

We seem to have quickly forgotten Tuesday's campus shutdown due to a mass shooting threat. However, the exact who-knew-what-when, and when and how decisions were made needs more scrutiny to avoid such events in the future. A TV station in Boulder, where the individual at the center of this event was arrested, has more information:

Man arrested in Boulder sent threatening email more than a year before his arrest

Matthew Harris used the word "kill" more than 7,500 times in his more than 800-page manifesto, authorities said.

Janet Oravetz (9News), Matthew Jablow, February 3, 2022

BOULDER, Colo. — More than a year before his arrest in Boulder earlier this week related to threats made to the UCLA campus, a former professor sent emails to his mother threatening to kill a professor at the UC Irvine campus, according to an affidavit in support of his arrest. Matthew Harris was tracked to Boulder by authorities after he was accused of sending a violent-filled manifesto to about 35 people on the UCLA campus, which prompted the campus to close on Tuesday.

Prior threats 

Harris wrote in a Jan. 21, 2021 email to his mother that he planned to move closer to the UC Irvine campus so that he could hunt the woman, who was also a former acquaintance of his, down and kill her, according to the document. At the time, Harris' mother did not notify authorities of that email, the document says. In March of that year, he sent his mother another email saying he was "ready to be dead" but wasn't going to hurt anyone else, according to the document. Again, his mother did not notify authorities, the document says.

On March 30, 2021, Harris, who was assigned to a research group during the winter quarter at UCLA, was reported to the UCLA Police Department as a subject of concern after he sent about 20 emails to various female students in his research group which contained offensive/inappropriate content, the affidavit says. Less than a month later, on April 10, 2021, several UCLA Philosophy Department members were forwarded an email from Harris' mother which indicated her son was unwell and had "made disturbing comments about his old colleagues," according to the affidavit. Two days later, the UCLA Behavioral Intervention Team Coordinator contacted police and detailed a conversation he had with Harris' mother where she relayed that she did not have a good relationship with him, the document says. She also relayed that he had been sending her strange emails over the past year containing threats to her, her cat and a professor, the document says.

She reported that she had not seen her son in about five years until he showed up at her North Carolina home the week prior. She reported that she was sleeping with a knife next to her and with her cat in her room because she feared what her son might do to them in their sleep, the document says.

On April 13, 2021, the professor who was threatened was forwarded the emails sent about her and was "shocked" at the seriousness of the threats and wanted to pursue charges, the affidavit says. The next day, police reached out to Harris' mother and encouraged her to seek an "involuntary commitment" of her son, which she did, the document says.

Harris was then hospitalized for about a month, the affidavit says.

In mid-May 2021, police learned that Harris had plans to fly to California and at that time a Gun Violence Emergency Protective Order was requested for Harris in the state of California.

On June 7, 2021, a three-year Temporary Restraining Order was granted in Los Angeles County which was filed by the University of California Regents, the affidavit says. It barred Harris from California College Campuses and barring him from possessing any weapons. He was also barred from contacting the professor whom he had threatened, the document says.

Harris moves to Colorado

On Feb. 1, 2022,  Harris' mother spoke with police and told them she had not been in contact with her son for about five months but learned he moved to Colorado sometime in the summer of 2021. She also reported that she was told by his doctors that he had schizophrenia, the document says.

Investigators learned that Harris was issued a Colorado license in November 2021 and had attempted to purchase a firearm at the Silver Bullet Shooting Range in Wheat Ridge. He was, however, denied that purchase as a result of the order put in place previously in California.

Threats to UCLA campus

Around 2 p.m. on Jan. 31, 2022, Harris sent an email to approximately 35 people directing them to a Google Drive containing an 803-page “manifesto” titled “death sentences” by Dr. Matthew C Harris, the affidavit says. According to the document, he also directed them to his YouTube channel which contained a video called “UCLA PHILOSOPHY (MASS SHOOTING)”. It depicted him talking with images from the 2003 movie Zero Day, which depicts a movie version of the surveillance cameras at the Columbine school shooting, the document says. Several of the recipients of the email contacted the FBI and as a result of the threats, all in-person Tuesday classes were canceled at UCLA.

On that same day, an agent briefly reviewed the 803-page document and through a word search found the following phrases and terms were mentioned with an "alarming frequency."

• Kill - approximately 7,512 times
• Death – approximately 452 times
• Murder – approximately 253 times
• Die – approximately 711 times
• Shoot – approximately 2,514 times
• Bomb – approximately 2,489 times
• Blow up – approximately 26 times
• Stab – approximately 73 times
• Drown – approximately 19 times
• Rape – approximately 111 times

The document also lists some quotes from the manifesto which include:

• Burn and attack Boulder outside by the university
• Hunt them where they work. Find out when they will have company gatherings or university welcomings. Kill their children at freshman orientation. Shoot them at the opening weekend.
• Bombs at middle schools, no threats. Shot gun columbine university slaying.
• Kill the board of trustees at every university.

Investigators did an emergency ping on Harris' cell phone on Jan. 31 and learned he was in Boulder. On that afternoon, CU Police responded to Harris' address and briefly saw him exit his residence yelling profanities and appearing to be highly agitated, the affidavit says. Officers briefly lost visual sight of Harris, but then heard more yelling coming from his apartment. He spoke with an officer through his door around 1:30 a.m. but refused to come out, the document says.

Harris' arrest

The Boulder regional SWAT was activated just before 8 a.m. on Feb. 1 as officers attempted to contact Harris in the 900 block of Broadway. The Boulder Valley School District said around 8:10 a.m. that University Hill Elementary was placed on a secure perimeter but eventually students were moved to the Boulder Valley School District Education Center to be picked up. Police said nearby University of Colorado Boulder fraternity and sorority homes were evacuated and shelter-in-place orders were sent to about 65 homes in the immediate area. Harris was taken into custody around 11 a.m. that morning without incident and all shelter-in-place orders were lifted.

Source: https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/boulder-threats-arrest-matthew-harris/73-c339de23-6e6e-454d-8b1f-29113acc039f.

Radio Silence on Accellion Breach - Part 4

While radio silence from UCOP continues, we can say that there were many institutions, apart from UC, affected by the Accellion data breach. Here is a recent listing:

Australian Securities and Investments Commission

Australia’s Transport for New South Wales

Bombardier

Flagstar Bank

Jones Day Law Firm

Kroger

Qualys

Reserve Bank of New Zealand

Royal Dutch Shell

Singtel

Stanford University

Trinity Health

Radio silence continues

University of Colorado

University of Maryland, Baltimore

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Kroger Pharmacy

Health Net

Trillium Health Plan

Arizona Complete Health

Stanford Medicine 

The University of Miami Health 

Centene Corp. 

Source and full article at: https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-breaches-and-attacks/accellion-vulnerabilities-victim-list/

Advance Knowledge: Accellion Breach

Although UC is just now reporting the Accellion breach, it appears that techie types were aware of the problem a month ago, as the headline and date above indicates. Whether UC knew at that point that it was among the targets is unclear. However, at least one university - the U of Colorado - was known a month ago to be a victim. From the article above: 

The drumbeat of data breach disclosures is unrelenting, with new organizations chiming in all the time. But a series of breaches in December and January that have come to light in recent weeks has quietly provided an object lesson in how bad things can get when hackers find an inroad to dozens of potential targets—and they're out for profit. Firewall vendor Accellion quietly released a patch in late December, and then more fixes in January, to address a cluster of vulnerabilities in one of its network equipment offerings. Since then, dozens of companies and government organizations worldwide have acknowledged that they were breached as a result of the flaws—and many face extortion, as the ransomware group Clop has threatened to make the data public if they don't pay up. 

On March 1, security firm FireEye shared the results of its investigation into the incident, concluding that two separate, previously unknown hacking groups carried out the hacking spree and the extortion work, respectively. The hackers seem to have connections to the financial crimes group FIN11 and the ransomware gang Clop. Publicly known victims so far include the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the state of Washington, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Singaporean telecom Singtel, the high-profile law firm Jones Day, the grocery store chain Kroger, and the University of Colorado; just last week, cybersecurity firm Qualys joined their ranks...

“Worldwide, actors have exploited the vulnerabilities to attack multiple federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial government organizations as well as private industry organizations including those in the medical, legal, telecommunications, finance, and energy sectors,” the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said at the end of February in a joint statement with international authorities. “In some instances observed, the attacker has subsequently extorted money from victim organizations to prevent public release of information exfiltrated from the Accellion appliance.”

Accellion has consistently emphasized that its FTA product, which has been around for more than 20 years, is at the end of its life. The company had already planned to end support for FTA on April 30, and had discontinued support for its operating system, Centos 6, on November 30. The company says it has been working for three years to transition customers away from FTA and onto its new platform, Kiteworks...

Incident responders say, though, that Accellion was slow to raise the alarm about the potential risk to FTA users. “The Accellion zero days were particularly damaging because actors were mass-exploiting this vulnerability quickly, and the severity of this wasn't being communicated from Accellion,” says David Kennedy, CEO of the corporate incident response consultancy TrustedSec...

The company faces multiple lawsuits in Northern California and Washington state court as a result of the widespread intrusions...

Full story at https://www.wired.com/story/accellion-breach-victims-extortion/

To paraphrase Watergate: What did UC know and when did it know it?

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.
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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/
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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

At the top

Inside Higher Ed picks up on the poor-returns-to-endowments thing, with UC tied with Ohio State U for the top (worst) results.* Of course, all we have to do is get rid of the minus (-) sign and we could be at the bottom (best) along with Yale.
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*https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/30/low-endowment-returns-dont-stop-regulation-push
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Anyway, with all the concern about rankings, we're on top:

From Our Good Ideas from All Over Department: Empty Dorms

Inside Higher Ed today pointed me to an article in the Denver Post (excerpt):  

Since the University of Colorado's Boulder and Colorado Springs campuses began segregating dorms for students with valid concealed-carry permits this year, not a single student has asked to live where guns are allowed. On Aug. 16, CU announced that both campuses would establish a residential area for students over age 21 with a permit to hold a concealed handgun. In all other dormitories, guns are banned. "So far, no one has moved," CU spokesman Ken McConnellogue said… 

Full story at http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_22056373/no-students-move-following-cu-dorm-segregation-gun

Insider Higher Ed summary at http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/11/26/gun-dorms-arent-attracting-students-colorado 

Such a surprise that no one wants to live there. Surely someone will want to give it a shot.

Quick Action for Dumb Questions at U of Colorado?

According to the chancellor of the U of Colorado, faculty may not shut down a class just because a student is carrying a gun.  So reports Inside Higher Ed today:
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The Colorado Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that students with concealed carry permits could bring handguns to university classrooms. ...(T)his week, Jerry Peterson, a professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and chair of the Boulder Faculty Assembly, said he would cancel classes if he found that someone had brought a firearm to class... (But) Philip P. DiStefano, the chancellor at UC-Boulder, sent out an e-mail Tuesday to faculty members that they could not shut down a class if a student with a concealed carry permit brought a gun...

Full story at http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/08/24/boulder-faculty-told-not-cancel-classes-over-guns

On the other hand, faculty could presumably also carry a gun and if someone asked a really dumb question: