Behind Closed Doors, The Regents Are Discussing You-Know-What

On Tuesday, the Regents will meet behind closed doors to discuss UC's conflict with the feds:

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA:

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, Compliance and Audit Committee, Finance and Capital Strategies Committee, Health Services Committee, Investments Committee, National Laboratories Committee, and the Public Engagement and Development Committee there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets.

This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws.

On Tuesday, July 28, 2026, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].)

The meeting will convene at 4:00 p.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 5:00 p.m.

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Chu, Cohen, Hernandez, Makarechian, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/july26/meeting-notice_federal-july-28-2026.pdf.

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Sometimes, these meetings are scheduled for 30 minutes, sometimes for an hour. This one is scheduled for an hour. Does that mean there is more to discuss? Who knows?

New Regent

Governor Newsom announces appointments 7.22.2026 [Excerpt]

...Scott Galloway, of Gulf Stream, Florida, has been appointed to the University of California Board of Regents. Galloway founded Section in 2019 and has served on the faculty of NYU Stern School of Business since 2002. Galloway was the Founder and Chairman at L2 from 2010 to 2019. He was the Founder of Red Envelope, where he held multiple positions from 1997 to 2008, including Chairman and Director. Galloway was the Founder of Prophet Brand Strategy, where he held several positions from 1992 to 2002, including Chairman and CEO. He served as a Member of the Board of Directors for the New York Times Co., a Board Member of Urban Outfitters, a Board Member of Panera Bread, and a Board Member of Berkeley Haas. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree from University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from University of California, Los Angeles. This position requires Senate confirmation, and there is no compensation. Galloway is a Democrat...

Source: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/07/22/governor-newsom-announces-appointments-7-22-2026/.

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From Politico: ...Galloway, a Democrat, has written prominently about issues of loneliness and isolation facing young men, which Newsom, a likely presidential contender, has sounded the alarm about. The governor last year signed an executive order aimed at addressing a rise in suicide rates and disconnection among young men and boys in the state. A professor of marketing at NYU, Galloway has founded several companies in the consulting and digital research fields, and served on the board of directors for Urban Outfitters, Panera Bread and The New York Times.

Galloway has been somewhat critical of higher education, arguing on a Chronicle of Higher Education podcast in March that some elite universities are making a “concerted effort to sequester supply” by hiking tuition and artificially keeping enrollment low, suggesting that such schools should lose their tax-exempt status. But he praised the UC as one of the systems “doing God’s work” to expand access by expanding first-year class sizes and summer and night classes.

Galloway, who lives in Florida, received his bachelor’s degree in economics from UCLA and an MBA from UC Berkeley. He has given to both schools — $12 million for students pursuing non-traditional pathways and $4.4 million to UC Berkeley for a fellowship for students from immigrant families.

Full story at https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/22/newsom-appoints-podcaster-scott-galloway-uc-board-regents-01008165.

From Wikipedia: Galloway was born in San Diego and grew up in Los Angeles, California. His father was a Scottish immigrant to the United States who worked as a sales executive. His mother, a Jewish immigrant from London, England, worked as a secretary... Galloway teaches brand management and digital marketing to second-year MBA students. Much of his research concerns big tech, including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Apple, which he refers to as "The Four" or "the Four Horsemen". His first book, The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, was released in 2017 and analyzes the big four's peculiar strengths and strategies, novel aspects of their economic models, tactics of expansion, as well as resulting social and individual consequences.

In September 2018, Recode and the Vox Media launched Pivot, a weekly news commentary podcast co-hosted by Kara Swisher and Galloway. In February 2020, Galloway launched The Prof G Show, a weekly podcast answering listener questions on business, money, and technology. On September 28, 2021, CNN announced that Galloway would be a host on its CNN+ streaming platform, but the platform went off the air shortly after launching.

In 2022, Galloway's weekly newsletter No Mercy/No Malice won the Webby Award and Webby's People's Voice Award for best business, news and technology websites and mobile sites...

Full story at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Galloway_(professor).

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Galloway interviewed in The Free Press: ...I think Trump is president because of failing young men. If you look at the three groups that pivoted hardest from blue to red, 2020 to 2024, you start with Latinos and people under the age of 30. And the reality is, for the first time in our nation’s history, a 30-year-old isn’t doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. They’re 24 percent less wealthy than people under the age of 40 were 40 years ago. Meanwhile, my generation is 72 percent wealthier than we were 40 years ago. The majority of our economic policies are nothing but an elegant transfer of wealth from the young to the old. So they’re fed up, and all they know is they’re not doing well, so they just want change.

And then the third group, and the most interesting one, that pivoted hardest from blue to red, was 45- to 64-year-old women. And my thesis is that they’re mothers. A lot of women in the United States will vote for whoever they perceive is best for their husbands and their sons. And when your son is in the basement playing video games and vaping, you don’t give a shit about the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine. You just want change.

Struggling young men are always the fire that moves. People will come along, tell them their economic problems are the fault of immigrants, or that women’s ascent is responsible for their descent. Radical jihad has always leveraged failing young men, right? Fight for us and die, there’s 12 virgins waiting for you. ISIS took sex slaves and gave them to their soldiers as part of their military strategy.

The natural state of being is an unchecked economic system where you don’t redistribute capital. A small number of men are really talented, really fortunate, inherit wealth, and they get to engage in Porsche polygamy and have a disproportionate number of mating partners. And the bottom 90 percent of men have fewer and fewer. That rage or dissatisfaction can be channeled into unproductive means.

The greatest innovation in history wasn’t the iPhone or vaccines; it was the American middle class, and it wasn’t an accident. Seven million men returned from war in uniform. They were fit. We put a bunch of money in their pockets to make them economically viable, which made them more attractive to women. This led to huge household formation, a baby boom, productive, loving households. Then they brought non-whites and women into this prosperity through great social progress, great legislation. We decided to transfer opportunity and money back from the most fortunate into the American middle class, but that is not the natural state of being.

If you don’t figure out policies that create forward-leaning investments in technology and education and give young people a fighting chance, you’re just going to have an unstable society. You’re going to return to the natural order of a small number of people having all of the opportunities, which just creates instability. In some ways, I think we’re returning to what has typically been the natural order of economies for the last several thousand years...

Full interview at https://www.thefp.com/p/scott-galloway-on-the-mating-crisis.

More on the need for a new Master Plan

As blog readers will know, the old Master Plan for Higher Education put together by UC President Clark Kerr and others, is rapidly eroding. We have argued that a new plan is needed so we have a roadmap of who should be doing what among the three segments of state higher ed: UC, CSU, and the community colleges. What we have now is ad hoc adjustments overseen by the legislature. There is no plan. We noted in a prior post that Regent Chair Anguiano seems to want to create one within the Regents. But it's hard to see how that could happen without some kind of participation of the community colleges, CSU, and the legislature.

One of the developments, given the absence of a plan, is pressure from community colleges to offer BA degrees, typically narrowly occupationally focused. A recent National Bureau of Economic Research study suggests that employers do value such degrees. Summary:

Community colleges are more financially, academically, and geographically accessible than four-year institutions. Yet despite most community college students intending to earn a bachelor’s degree, few successfully transfer and complete one. Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) programs have emerged as an alternative pathway, allowing community colleges to confer bachelor’s degrees directly. However, little is known about how employers value these credentials in the labor market. To address this question, we conduct the first resume audit study of CCB degrees, submitting fictitious applications to real job vacancies while experimentally varying applicants’ educational credentials, degree-granting institutions, and demographic signals. In this pilot study, we focus on the early childhood education (ECE) labor market, a rapidly growing CCB field characterized by labor shortages and increasing educational requirements. We find that employers view CCB degrees similarly to both traditional bachelor’s and associate degrees, with statistically indistinguishable interview-request rates across degree types. A text analysis of employer callback messages reveals little evidence that employers communicate differently with CCB applicants, while a net-price simulation suggests that sticker-price comparisons substantially overstate the affordability advantage of CCB programs. Together, these findings provide new evidence on the labor market value and affordability of CCB degrees and inform an ongoing large-scale audit study across additional fields and labor markets.

Full study at https://www.nber.org/papers/w35404.

A new Master Plan process would look at studies such as the one above and possibly commission others. And it would bring together interest groups, academics, and political leaders to hammer out a coherent approach. In other words, it would be formulated much as the old plan was.

Watch the Regents Meetings of July 14, 2026

We are catching up with the Regents meetings of last week. We have already noted the ambitious plan set out in the meeting of July 14th by Chair Anguiano that seems to go beyond the immediate SAT issue, so we won't repeat that material here.

There were many public comments on the SAT issue, mainly, but not exclusively, urging reinstatement of the test. Other topics included use of license plate readers, hiring of UC of undocumented students, remote work for staff at UC, Muslim student issues, the Hawaii telescope project (TMT), anti-Israel, and the maintenance of a nature reserve. 

A new student regent-delegate was appointed after public comments. Chair Anguiano made her above-mentioned statement. President Milliken noted that Provost Newman would be stepping down. The faculty representative, Senate Chair Palazoglu, indicated that the Senate review of the SAT issue would be "deliberative."

There was then a presentation of the "UC Inspires" campaign emphasizing accomplishments of UC Health and its cooperation with the VA, scientific innovation and entrepreneurship, contributions to agricultural research, and "access" to UC.

At the Health Services Committee, an executive pay matter was approved. The rest of the Committee meeting was devoted to the statistical dashboard of various quality measures. Regent Park took note of some measures that indicated quality concerns and asked about responses. One issue noted was the "boarding" problem, i.e., patients who needed to be transferred or discharged but who were stuck in hospitals for various reasons.

The Compliance and Audit Committee approved audit and compliance plans. Note was taken in the presentation about cybersecurity issues.

As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy on duration of retention. The general link for recordings of the July 14th meetings is:

https://archive.org/details/regents-7-14-2026.

The opening full Board session is at:

https://ia800703.us.archive.org/14/items/regents-7-14-2026/Regents-Board%207-14-2026.mp4.

Health Services and Compliance and Audit sessions are at:

https://ia600703.us.archive.org/14/items/regents-7-14-2026/Regents-Health%20Services%20Committee%2C%20Compliance%20and%20Audit%207-14-2026.mp4.

Note that the recordings at that link can be easily downloaded. The same is true for prior Regents meetings we have preserved. Go the "Download Options" at that link.

Fast vs. Slow: Maybe That's Not the Question

There seems to be confusion in news accounts - as blog readers will know from past postings - over whether the decision regarding the SAT is moving faster or slower than before. The chair of the systemwide Senate issued two statements regarding the SAT issue. 

What seems to be the bottom line is that a more detailed timeline will be released after the Academic Council meets on July 22nd. How long after the 22nd there will be a release is unclear.

Statement #1:

Statement from UC Academic Senate on admissions review

UC Office of the President, July 13, 2026

After published reports emerged today (July 13) that the University of California’s Academic Senate voted on July 10 to rescind its review of standardized testing admissions, Ahmet Palazoglu, the University of California’s Academic Senate Chair, issued the following statement:

“The Academic Senate is not rescinding its commitment to a comprehensive review of standardized testing in admissions. Recognizing the significance of this issue, the Academic Senate is revising its timeline while ensuring the forthcoming review is thorough, evidence-based and informed by faculty expertise.”

Source: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/statement-uc-academic-senate-admissions-review.

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Statement #2:

Statement from UC Academic Senate Chair Ahmet Palazoglu on review of UC admissions

UC Office of the President, July 14, 2026

“The Academic Senate’s comprehensive review of the University’s undergraduate admissions policies will align with the Board of Regents’ timeline to deliver a policy recommendation on the use of standardized tests in admissions by the end of the 2026–27 academic year (June 2027 for our campuses based on the quarter system). The separate review of UC’s A-G framework is not tied to the same timeline. A new plan from the Academic Senate will be available after the Academic Council meeting on July 22, 2026. The goal of this A-G policy review is to consider how UC defines and evaluates college readiness in a rapidly changing educational environment.”

Source: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/statement-ahmet-palazoglu-chair-ucs-academic-senate-review-uc-admissions.

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Perhaps more significant than the statements above is the statement of the new Regents Chair, Maria Anguiano. She essentially declared the old Master Plan dead. And then she proposed, without explicitly saying so, that the Regents spend the next year coming up with a substitute, although she did not mention the other two components of higher ed in California: CSU and the community colleges. Nor did she mention the state legislature which has been doing ad hoc tinkering with the old Master Plan, as blog readers will know. The SAT decision is to be but one element in the year-long review she announced.

Although her statement was a personal one, it's hard to imagine she didn't discuss what she was going to say with President Milliken and other Regents. An excerpt from her statement is below:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vXplgoFlCc or https://ia600703.us.archive.org/14/items/regents-7-14-2026/Anguiano%20on%20Master%20Plan%2C%20SAT%2C%20%26%20Priorities%207-14-2026.mp4.

Everyone is entitled to the Regents' Opinion

Generally, the Regents do not take political positions. But as an exception, they do advocate for UC on occasion, especially when items directly affecting UC are on the ballot. 

At today's Regents meeting, the board is expected to endorse the housing bond which the legislature has put on the November ballot, and which allocates some money for UC student housing. From Item B4:

On June 25, 2026, the Governor signed Senate Bill 417 (Limón), the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026. The measure placed Proposition 1 on the November 3, 2026 ballot, which asks voters to approve an $11.25 billion statewide housing bond. The bond includes $350 million for the Higher Education Student Housing Grant Program to be divided equally between the University of California and the California State University system. If the bond passes, the University would be eligible for $175 million to develop affordable student housing projects. The President recommends that the Board of Regents endorse Proposition 1, the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026...

Full item at https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/july26/b4.pdf.

Fast Run

In contrast to our previous post on this blog, consider this item from the Sacramento Bee:

At a meeting Tuesday morning, Board of Regents Chair Maria Anguiano said she anticipates a recommendation from the Academic Senate within the 2026-2027 academic year. “The goal of this review is not to rehash old questions or data but an opportunity to take a fresh look at how we define and evaluate college readiness in a rapidly changing world,” Anguiano said. “Our responsibility is not to begin with answers but with the discipline to ask better questions, to understand the evidence, to hear diverse perspectives, to deliberate thoughtfully and to make wise, long-term decisions.” 

The Academic Senate, which represents faculty across the system, will lead the review process through the year while the board deepens its own understanding of the broad questions at hand, she said. In a statement, Academic Senate Chair Ahmet Palazoglu confirmed a policy recommendation would be provided by June 2027. A new plan for the review process, he said, would be shared after the Academic Council meeting on July 22...

Full story at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article316506622.html.

So everything depends on whether you read the San Francisco Chronicle or the Sacramento Bee.

The Roadmap: Now you see it...

Blog readers may have noticed an article in today's LA Times on the SAT issue. Specifically, the article notes that just as the Regents meetings are about to begin, including issues of admissions criteria, links on the systemwide Academic Senate page to the "roadmap" seem to be disappearing.

The University of California admissions board has voted to rescind — for now — its plan to study whether to resume SAT or ACT requirements in admissions, a move that leaves one of the university’s most closely watched debates unclear a day before the Board of Regents meets in San Francisco... At a Friday meeting, BOARS voted to pull back on the plan, and the links that explained it — which appeared on the UC website late last week — have been removed...

In a statement Monday evening, UC Academic Senate Chair Ahmet Palazoglu said the senate was “not rescinding its commitment to a comprehensive review of standardized testing in admissions.” The admissions board is a committee of the senate...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-13/uc-suspends-plan-to-reconsider-sat-in-admissions.

Yours truly is not a fan of disappearing documents. And it turns out the old links are still available. So, we have put the roadmap plan at a new location where it won't disappear:

Executive Summary:

https://ia600601.us.archive.org/32/items/blog-3rd-qtr-2026/UC-academic-senate-boars-roadmap-executive%20summary%2006-11-2026.pdf.

Full Roadmap:

https://ia600601.us.archive.org/32/items/blog-3rd-qtr-2026/UC-academic-senate-boars-roadmap-06-05-2026.pdf.

Removed

Sometimes, items that appear on the preliminary Regents agenda are removed before the actual meeting.

Item F5 - an action item that was on the agenda for tomorrow - has been removed from the agenda of the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee. The item:

UCLA West Valley Medical Center Replacement Hospital and Parking Structure, UCLA Health, Los Angeles Campus: Preliminary Plans Funding and External Financing

Apparently, somebody decided it was not yet ready for prime time.

Testing not on the agenda

As blog readers will likely know, there has been a flurry of news articles about the Regents abandonment of the SAT as an admission criterion.* And there seems to be an assumption that the Regents will do something about the issue at the upcoming meetings this week. But doing something seems both unlikely and unrealistic. While the Regents do have one element of admissions on their agenda for discussion, that item concerns the A-G requirements for high school courses. The documentation for the A-G topic references the SAT only its historical context and only in passing.**

Of course, the SAT topic could be brought up by Regents during that discussion, or by anyone during public comments. But without documentation directly addressing the issue, it is hard to imagine big decisions being made about it. 

We have noted in past posting, however, that a full discussion would be possible for the September meetings. So the question is whether the Regents want to have the necessary documentation prepared for them over the summer.

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*Example: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-09/uc-sat-act-return-admissions-math-skills.

**https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/july26/a3.pdf.

The Absent Word

At their upcoming meetings, the Regents will be hearing a presentation - actually a series of presentations - on "UC Inspires: Celebrating America’s 250th and UC's Contributions to the Nation." The reports highlight UC's connections with the VA, medical and scientific developments, contributions to agriculture, and economic importance.

Yours truly did a search on the source document attached to the Regents' agenda and noted that the word "diversity" appears nowhere within it.* The closest it comes to that once-popular word is a highlighting of access to first generation college students.

Just an observation...

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*https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/july26/board7.14.pdf.

TMT

From time to time, we look at the status of the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) project on Hawaii. UC is involved in the project, along with other institutions. The issue sometimes comes up at public comments during UC Regents meetings. Perhaps it will at the upcoming July meetings. As blog readers will know, the project was stalled by local opposition

From Hawaii News Now: Dozens of people — including tribal leaders, members of Mauna Kea Education and Awareness from Hawaii Island and others — delivered a petition... opposing construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Maunakea to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in Palo Alto, California, which had committed $250 million to the project. The group also delivered a copy of a cease-and-desist letter that had been sent to TMT. “Over 500,000 people are here with us today in the spirit of saying no TMT on Maunakea,” Pua Case of Mauna Kea Education and Awareness told Hawaii News Now.

“Should the Thirty Meter Telescope be considered for the Caltech decommissioned site or back to the northern plateau, we are asking them to halt any further funding for the Thirty Meter Telescope and because they’re the largest single donor funder. That’s why we’re here,” Case said...

The petition comes as TMT is looking at another site on Maunakea. TMT’s project manager told the UH [University of Hawaii] Board of Regents last month the project is looking at the site where the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory was decommissioned and removed in 2024. “We have taken a preliminary look of whether we can possibly build TMT on the decommissioned site scientifically, engineering-wise technically and we believe this is very preliminary, of course, and we believe we can,” said Dr. Fengchuan Liu, TMT International Observatory project manager...

Full story at https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2026/06/27/tmt-opponents-deliver-petition-major-funder-california/.

This will be hard (but not impossible!) for the Regents to Ignore

From the Editorial Board of the NY Times: Seven years ago, the University of California system appointed an 18-member committee to study the use of standardized tests in its undergraduate admissions. The committee included professors from all 10 campuses and a range of disciplines. They spent a year studying the issue and published a 225-page report full of evidence and recommendations. 

The committee concluded that scores on the SAT and ACT, the main standardized tests for college admissions, did a better job measuring student readiness for college than high school grades. High test scores were particularly good at finding talented students from low-income families and underrepresented minority groups. For these reasons, the committee recommended the system continue to require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores.

The university’s leaders disregarded the report. A few months after its release, early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the system’s Board of Regents voted to stop using the tests in undergraduate admissions. Initially, the university planned to make the submission of SAT and ACT scores optional, as many other colleges did during the pandemic. Almost immediately, though, the University of California began refusing to accept SAT or ACT scores, even from students who wanted to submit them. The policy was known as “test blind.” University leaders wrongly claimed that it would make admissions fairer and more equitable.

The results have been terrible... More than half of entering Berkeley students who took a math placement test incorrectly answered basic questions... Reading and writing skills have also deteriorated, and professors say they must spend time teaching elementary skills. “After the SAT was dropped, I got students who could not write a sentence,” said Janet Sorensen, an English professor at Berkeley...

Hundreds of faculty members describe the situation as an emergency. More than 1,500 science and mathematics professors, including the chairs of more than 60 departments, have signed a letter asking the university to reinstate the test requirement. More than 700 humanities and social sciences professors have signed a similar letter... So far, the university’s leaders are ignoring the faculty’s plea for urgency. They instead plan to appoint a new committee to study the issue over the next year, saying they need more time to understand the data. This delay could lock in the current policy until 2029 because students tend to take the SAT and ACT during junior year of high school. 

The university’s trustees, known as the regents, have the final word. When they next meet, on July 14, they should have the courage to admit they made a mistake six years ago and reverse it... Even Janet Napolitano, who was the university president in 2020 and recommended a test-blind policy then, now favors its reversal. “It was a worthwhile experiment,” she told us, “but as the results come in, it is increasingly clear that the experiment needs to be revisited.”

...When the regents meet this month, they will face a choice. They can acknowledge their error and restore the test requirement, or they can adopt a classic bureaucratic dodge and appoint yet another committee to study a problem that has an evident answer.

Full editorial at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/opinion/university-california-sat-testing-admissions.html.

Novel Regent

Usually, stories about UC regents don't appear in the Entertainment section. But Regent Greg Sarris is an unusual exception.

From the LA Times: On a Monday morning in California, Sarris sits in his sleek office at the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria in Rohnert Park. Sarris, 74, has served as chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria for more than 30 years. In his office, diplomas and academic certificates crowd the walls. A framed poster for the 2023 film “Joan Baez: I Am a Noise” hangs nearby — she’s a close friend. Behind him, an American flag ripples in the distance outside the window, blurred by the summer heat. Just up the road sits a multibillion-dollar tribe-owned casino, Graton Resort & Casino — a project the writer oversees. “I had never been in a casino. I have a PhD in modern thought and literature from Stanford,” says Sarris.

How does an accomplished author find himself at the helm of a multibillion-dollar casino enterprise? It’s a question that still puzzles Sarris. “I told them if we can raise our people and become a platform for social justice and environmental stewardship to benefit Indian and non-Indian alike, I’ll do it.” ...

Before his stint as a reluctant casino mogul, Sarris was a prolific author and university professor at UCLA and Sonoma State. In 2023, he was appointed a regent of the University of California by Gavin Newsom. Over the course of his career, he published six books, and his novel “Grand Avenue” became an HBO original film in 1996...

In 1952, Sarris’ teenage mother gave him up for adoption, her family hoping to evade the embarrassment of their Jewish daughter becoming pregnant by a Native American Filipino man. Sarris grew up in a white family in Santa Rosa alongside three siblings. His adopted father, George Sarris, became abusive, causing Greg to flee the house with his adopted mother’s blessing. “God bless her. She let me go out and live on ranches and run with other people to get away from him.”

At age 30, Sarris uncovered the identities of his birth parents and learned of his Native heritage. He learned his birth mother was buried in a pauper’s grave at the Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Santa Rosa, with “nothing to mark her grave but an upside-down horseshoe that has her name in it.” In the opening pages of the novel, a dedication to her: Bunny Hartman...

...The Graton Resort & Casino, launched by Sarris over 12 years ago, now plays a vital role in supporting the Pomo Indian community. “I promised early on: roof over everyone’s head, an insurance policy in every pocket and a college degree paid for,” he says. “We give $2.5 million a year in perpetuity to the University of California, so that all California Indians can go to the University of California tuition-free.” The casino has funded theater programs, youth writing intensives and revenue sharing with neighboring tribes...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2026-06-24/graton-resort-casino-greg-sarris-native-history-author.

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As blog readers will know, the feds are looking into Gov. Newsom's finances and those of his wife. It is unclear that anything illicit has been found. The California practice of "behested" payments, although not illegal, doesn't have a good look. Regent Sarris may be pulled into that issue. From the LA Times:

...In 2020, [Jennifer] Siebel Newsom founded the California Partners Project, a nonprofit focused on improving gender equity in the workplace and the safety and well-being of children in online spaces. She does not collect compensation from the nonprofit or serve on its board. It hosts an annual “gender equity summit” and provides resources for parents on issues such as social media safety and child mental health. The California Partners Project also does not publicly disclose its donors in its tax filings, but much of the nonprofit’s funding appears to come from behested payments. Siebel Newsom does not receive a salary from the organization.

Since its founding, the Newsoms have steered more than $5 million to the nonprofit via behested payments, according to a review of the disclosures. While many donations to the California Partners Project come from charitable foundations, it also received hundreds of thousands from companies including Silicon Valley Bank, Pinterest and the charitable arm of Blue Shield of California. 

Its biggest funder is the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, a Sonoma County tribe that operates a casino in Rohnert Park and spends heavily in state and federal elections. The tribe has given $2.3 million to the nonprofit since 2022. In June 2023, Newsom appointed tribal Chairman Greg Sarris to the University of California Board of Regents. Newsom has also supported efforts by the tribe to block a smaller tribe from building a casino in nearby Vallejo...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-06-25/newsom-says-wife-is-target-of-trump-heres-what-we-know-of-her-finances.

Upcoming Regents Agenda: July 14-15, 2026

Normally, the Regents' upcoming agenda wouldn't be available quite so soon. But it apparently was prepared early because of the holiday. Happy 4th of July.

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: 

Agenda: July 14-15, 2026, UC-San Francisco

==

Tuesday, July 14

10:30 am Board (open session - includes public comment session) 

Public Comment Period (30 minutes)

Committee Report:

Special Committee to Select a Student Regent: Appointment of 2027–28 Student Regent

    Remarks of the Chair of the Board

    Remarks of the President of the University

    Remarks of the Chair of the Academic Senate

B1 Discussion: UC Inspires: Celebrating America’s 250th and UC's Contributions to the Nation

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1:15 pm Health Services Committee (closed session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of May 5, 2026

H1(X) Discussion: UC Irvine Health Acquisition Integration and Risk Review

H2(X) Discussion: UC Health Litigation Update

H3(X) Discussion: Appointment of and Compensation for Chief Nursing Executive, UCSF Health, San Francisco Campus

Upon end of closed session:

Health Services Committee (open session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of May 5, 2026

H3 Action: Approval of Appointment of and Compensation for Chief Nursing Executive, UCSF Health, San Francisco Campus

H4 Discussion: Quality Dashboard Review: An Update from the University of California Health Clinical Quality Committee

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3:15 pm Compliance and Audit Committee (open session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of March 18, 2026

C1 Action: Compliance Plan for 2026-27 and Internal Audit Plan for 2026-27

Upon end of open session:

Compliance and Audit Committee (closed session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of May 6, 2026

C2(X) Discussion: Data and Trends in Professional Liability Settlements

C3(X) Action: Recommended Settlements for Board Action:

Swinerton Contractors, Inc. Pre-Litigation Dispute – Proposed Settlement – Construction Delay – Santa Cruz

C4(X) Discussion: Appellate, Trial Court Developments and Updates

1. CITY OF PASADENA, et al. v. REGENTS, et al. (Rose Bowl Litigation) – Motions Denied – Breach of Contract – Los Angeles 

2. DO NO HARM, et al. v. REGENTS, et al.; STUDENTS AGAINST RACIAL DISCRIMINATION v. REGENTS, et al.; ZHONG, et al. v. REGENTS, et al. (Admissions Litigation) – Various Activity – Racial Discrimination – All Campuses

Note: These are complaints of illegal "affirmative action" in admissions

3. DOES v. REGENTS, et al. (Heaps) – Trial Date Set – Sexual Misconduct – Los Angeles Medical Center and Campus Health

4. FEDERAL FUNDING LITIGATION – Various Activity – Contracts and Grants – Systemwide

5. PALESTINE SOLIDARITY PRA COLLECTIVE v. REGENTS – Petition for Writ of Mandate Granted – Office of the President

6. PROTEST-RELATED CASES – Various Activity – Multiple Campuses

9. UNITED STATES v. REGENTS, et al. (AB 540 Litigation) – Motion to Dismiss Fully Briefed – All Campuses

Note: AB 540 is the California statute providing in-state tuition, etc., to DACA and other undocumented residents.

22. GENERAL COUNSEL’S UPDATE ON LITIGATION

Note: Missing numbers above refer to various individual employment discrimination, whistleblower, medical malpractice, and sexual harassment cases.

C5(X) Information: Settlements and Separation Agreements under Delegated Authority Reported from April 1, 2026 to May 31, 2026

==

Wednesday, July 15

8:30 am Board (open session - includes public comment session) 

Public Comment Period (30 minutes)

Approval of the Minutes of the Meetings of May 5 and 6, 2026

   Remarks from Student Associations

   Annual Council of University of California Staff Assemblies Report

President’s Outstanding Student Awards and Regents Foster Youth Awards

B2 Discussion: Report on Retention and Graduation Rates

--

10:45 am Special Committee on Nominations (closed session) 

S1(X) Action: Appointment of Regents-designate and Faculty Representatives to Standing Committees for 2026-27

--

10:50 am Board (closed session) 

B3(X) Discussion: External Funding Litigation and Legal Issues

--

Concurrent meetings: 

12:45 pm Academic and Student Affairs Committee (open session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of May 6, 2026

A1 Discussion: UC Education Abroad Program: Global Learning for Career and World Impact

A2 Discussion: The Economic Impact of a UC Degree

A3 Discussion: The History and Role of A–G in UC Admissions

Note: There is no mention of the SAT controversy in A3.

--

12:45 pm Finance and Capital Strategies Committee (closed session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of March 18, 2026

F1(X) Action: East Campus Student Apartments Phase 5 Project, Irvine Campus: Ground Lease Business Terms, Financing, and Budget

Upon end of closed session:

Finance and Capital Strategies Committee (open session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of May 6, 2026

Consent Agenda:

• F2A Action: Consent Item: Heathcock Hall, Berkeley Campus: Amendment of Budget and External Financing
• F2B Action: Consent Item: Hyde Hospital Behavioral Health Renovation, San Francisco Campus: Budget, Scope, and Design Following an Exemption Determination Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act

F3 Action: East Campus Student Apartments Phase 5 Project, Irvine Campus: Design And Long Range Development Plan Amendment Following Action: Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act

F4 Action: Advanced Work Phase of the Hillcrest Medical Center Renewal Project, UC San Diego Health Campus: Working Drawings and Construction Funding, Scope, External Financing, and Design Following Consideration of an Addendum to the Hillcrest Campus 2019 Long Range Development Plan Environmental Impact Report Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act

F5 Action: UCLA West Valley Medical Center Replacement Hospital and Parking Structure, UCLA Health, Los Angeles Campus: Preliminary Plans Funding and External Financing

F6 Discussion: The 2026-27 State Budget Act

F7 Information: Significant Information Technology Projects Report for the Period January 1, 2026 through April 30, 2026

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2:15 pm National Laboratories Committee (open session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of January 20, 2026

N1 Action: Allocation of LLC Fee Income to Be Expended in Fiscal Year 2026–27

--

2:30 pm Governance Committee (open session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of May 5, 2026

G1 Action: Resolution to Exclude a Regent from Access to Classified Information

--

2:35 pm Board (open session) 

B4 Action: Endorsement of Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026

Committee Reports Including Approvals of Recommendations from Committees:

   Academic and Student Affairs Committee

   Compliance and Audit Committee

   Finance and Capital Strategies Committee

   Governance Committee

   Health Services Committee

   National Laboratories Committee

Special Committee on Nominations

Resolution

Officers’ and President’s Reports: Report of Materials Mailed Between Meetings

Upon end of open session:

Board (closed session) 

Action: Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of May 6, 2026

Committee Reports Including Approval of Recommendations from Committees:

   Compliance and Audit Committee

   Finance and Capital Strategies Committee

   Health Services Committee

Officers’ and President’s Reports:

Personnel Matters

Report of Interim Actions

Report of Materials Mailed Between Meetings

==

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/july26.html.

Don't bother to knock...

...the Regents are having another closed meeting to discuss the conflict with the feds. You're not invited.

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA:

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets.

This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws. 

On Tuesday, June 30, 2026, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].)

The meeting will convene at 10:30 a.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 11:00 a.m.

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Cohen, Hernandez, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

--

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/june26/meeting-notice_federal-june-30-2026.pdf.

--

You might wonder what developments there are to discuss at this meeting. We have noted in prior posts that the "federal updates" webpage on the UC website doesn't in fact have any recent updates. It used to be the case that when you clicked on "news" on the UC website, the federal updates page was shown as an option. There is still a federal updates page: 

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/federal-updates. 

But it no longer shows as a menu option.

Nothing to see here?

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNOrp_83RU.

Closed-Door Regents Meeting Today

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA:

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets.

This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws. On Tuesday, June 23, 2026, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].)

The meeting will convene at 10:30 a.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 11:00 a.m.

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Cohen, Hernandez, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

--

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/june26/meeting-notice_federal-june-23-2026.pdf.

--

You're not invited.  

July Discussion?

As blog readers will know, the systemwide Academic Senate is embarking on a study of admissions practices - including the idea of reintroducing the SAT - known as the "roadmap." Although the announcement of the roadmap appeared after a petition by STEM (and later non-STEM) faculty to return to the SAT, the plan for the roadmap was developed before the petition made the news. So it was not responsive to that petition.

When the roadmap was announced, UC President Milliken issued a statement:

University of California President James B. Milliken today (June 11) issued the following statement on the UC Academic Senate plan to review admissions policies:

The Board of Regents and University leadership take very seriously the critical issue of college preparedness, and the UC Academic Senate has proposed a comprehensive, data-driven review to support its recommendations to strengthen student readiness and success at UC. There are few things more important on our agenda. The faculty review will focus on both preparation and admissions, including whether standardized testing should be required. It’s important that UC gets this right. The UC Board of Regents and I will receive an update on the Academic Assembly’s work in July, and we look forward to considering the recommendations that emerge from this important work.

Source: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-president-milliken-statement-academic-senate-plan-review-admissions-policies.

As blog readers will know, yours truly has suggested that an appropriate response to the faculty petition would be to do an accelerated study over the summer and have discussion with the Regents at their September meeting. That approach would have been truly responsive. Saying that the topic will be discussed in July sounds like a super-acceleration. But in fact, all that will be said in July is that there is a (non-responsive) roadmap in place that will require a full year of study. Realistically, what else could be said at a Regents meeting only a month away? Nothing will have happened other than the announcement of the (slow) roadmap.

Slowly following the roadmap

We noted on this blog that there was a Zoom meeting of the Assembly of the systemwide Academic Senate last Thursday. Yours truly was able to attend only parts of that meeting due to medical issues. However, at around he same time, BOARS released a "roadmap" concerning UC admissions policy.* It proposes to create working groups to study the SAT/testing issue and the A-G requirements. 

There was some controversy at the Assembly over the working group for A-G. It wasn't exactly clear what the concern was but yours truly suspects it had something to do with the recent Ethnic Studies brouhaha. ??? In any event, despite an effort for the Assembly officially to express a view that there was no need for more A-G study, the Assembly did not take that position. So there will be more A-G study,

More concerning was the SAT/testing issue. According to a report in the LA Times,** the number of signatures of UC STEM faculty on the letter pushing for reinstatement of the SAT for incoming STEM majors has grown to over 1,400.

It should be noted that the BOARS roadmap appears to have been prepared before the letter and proposes moving along at the usual Senate deliberative pace. While we have noted the seeming impracticality of having an SAT requirement only for some prospective majors, we suggested a more responsive and rapid effort over the summer - not over another full academic year as the roadmap suggests - to create an interim report that could be discussed at the September Regents meeting. (The Regents are surely aware of the controversy; they read the LA Times.) Although a concern was expressed that waiting a year for a report pushes back actually implementing something at least a year, that seems to be the likely scenario at this point.

==

*https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-academic-senate-announces-plan-review-admissions-policies; https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/boars/documents/uc-academic-senate-boars-roadmap-executive-summary-06-11-2026.pdf; https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/boars/documents/uc-academic-senate-boars-roadmap-06-05-2026.pdf; https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/boars/documents/academic-senate-chair-to-faculty-re-boars-roadmap-06-11-2026.pdf.

**https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-06-11/uc-sat-act-test-requirement-admissions-reconsider.

Another closed-door meeting coming up

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA:

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets.

This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws.

On Tuesday, June 9, 2026, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].)

The meeting will convene at 4:00 p.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 4:30 p.m.

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Cohen, Hernandez, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/june26/meeting-notice_federal-june-9-2026.pdf.