Possible ULP Strike

Fired UCSC grad students speak out, campus prepares for impacts: At least 74 TAs dismissed or barred for refusal to submit grades

By NICHOLAS IBARRA | 3-2-20 | Santa Cruz Sentinel

...A campus message Friday listed the number of fired grading strikers as 54, but further review of outstanding grades has seen that number grow to 74, according to an email from UCSC spokesman Scott Hernandez-Jason on Monday. A “small number” of cases remain under review, Hernandez-Jason said...

Repeated calls from union leadership for the UC to reopen negotiation for a cost-of-living adjustment have so far gone unheeded. Both sides have filed formal unfair labor practice charges against one another over the strike.

On Monday, UAW 2865 president Kavitha Iyengar raised the possibility of a union-wide strike vote.

“We formally asked UC to come to the bargaining table and negotiate a cost of living adjustment months ago — and they continue to refuse,” Iyengar said in a prepared release. “Instead they have consistently tried to do an end run around the union in both the bargaining and discipline process. The union’s elected Bargaining Team will convene this week to discuss our options, and that includes a possible strike authorization vote in response to UC’s repeated Unfair Labor Practices.”

Full story at https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2020/03/02/fired-ucsc-grad-students-speak-out-campus-prepares-for-impacts/

Note: A strike protesting an unfair labor practice (ULP) by the university would potentially protect strikers from being fired, if PERB ultimately found the strike to be truly for that reason. It's less clear that such a ruling, if it occurred, would provide legal protection for the 74 reported to be fired already. Their statements up until the firing (and even after) focused on an economic issue. Economic strikers are less protected from firing than ULP strikers.

Secret Meetings

The Regents' presidential search committee had a closed-door meeting yesterday in Sacramento.* Or rather, they had three back-to-back closed-door meetings, according to the agenda. (See the image accompanying this posting.)

Meeting #1 was described as "Consideration of Matters Pertaining to Presidential Search." Not much to go on there!

Meeting #2 was a bit more revealing:
"Consideration of Matters Pertaining to Presidential Search with the Academic Advisory Committee." If you are wondering about the Academic Advisory Committee, its members are:

• Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Sociology, UC Santa Barbara (Chair)
• John Powell, Law, UC Berkeley
• Barbara Spackman, Italian, UC Berkeley
• Linda Bisson, Oenology, UC Davis
• Oladele Ogunseitan, Public Health, UC Irvine
• Sandra Graham, Education, UCLA
• Sean Malloy, History, UC Merced
• Mary Gauvain, Psychology, UC Riverside
• Sarita Echavez See, Media and Cultural Studies, UC Riverside
• Javier Garay, Mechanical Engineering, UC San Diego
• Steven Cheung, Otolaryngology, UC San Francisco
• Henning Bohn, Economics, UC Santa Barbara
• Christina Ravelo, Ocean Sciences, UC Santa Cruz

Meeting #3 returns to the cryptic "Consideration of Matters Pertaining to Presidential Search."

One wonders if some of the discussion involved the denial reported on earlier on this blog of the prez of Arizona State University that he was a a candidate for the UC job.** Is someone leaking?

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*https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/mar0220.html

**http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2020/02/nothing-to-crow-about.html

The even-if-it's-true-it-doesn't-matter argument

In response to a defense request for documents, UCLA is arguing that even if there is bad stuff on admissions practices to be uncovered, it wouldn't help this defendant.

UCLA, University of California ask judge to reject ex-soccer coach’s subpoena request

Nathan Fenno, 2-28-20, LA Times 

UCLA and the University of California pushed back Friday against an attempt by Jorge Salcedo, the former men’s soccer coach charged in the college admissions scandal, to subpoena a wide variety of documents from the institutions.

“The defense theory the proposed subpoenas are intended to support is legally unsound and factually irrelevant,” said the motion filed in U.S. District Court in Boston by attorneys for UCLA and the University of California. “The Court should reject Salcedo’s effort to drum up irrelevant evidence that would serve no purpose other than to distract from the charges at hand.”

Salcedo, the head coach at UCLA since 2004, resigned last spring after being charged with accepting $200,000 in bribes from college admissions consultant Rick Singer to facilitate the admission of two students to the school as soccer recruits though they didn’t play the sport.

The five charges against Salcedo, including conspiracy to commit racketeering, are part of the nationwide federal probe into fraudulent admissions dubbed “Varsity Blues” that has ensnared dozens of parents, coaches, administrators and others. He has pleaded not guilty and is the only UCLA coach linked to the investigation.

Last month, Salcedo’s attorneys filed a motion alleging UCLA used athlete admissions as a fundraising vehicle and seeking authorization to issue subpoenas to the school and the University of California. The proposed subpoena to UCLA sought 48 categories of information including an unredacted copy of the school’s 2014 internal investigation into the admission of two students as athletes, communications involving athletic director Dan Guerrero, pledge agreements and records of any dealings between the school and Singer.

The filing Friday assailed the documents sought by the proposed subpoenas as a “fishing expedition” and “not relevant” to Salcedo’s defense.

“To be clear, Salcedo does not allege that the evidence he seeks would show that he did not accept bribes,” the filing said. “Nor does Salcedo claim that it would show that he did not falsify the applicants’ athletic credentials, or that he did not try to deceive UCLA. Instead, Salcedo seeks evidence to deflect attention away from his own actions and instead turn the focus on the institution he defrauded, UCLA, in a misguided attempt to find fault with the University’s admissions practices.”

One of Salcedo’s Boston-based attorneys, Thomas Frongillo, said he didn’t have an opportunity to review the motion.

In the aftermath of the 2014 investigation, first reported by The Times in April, the filing said UCLA instituted a variety of safeguards for the athletic admissions process.

“Even if Salcedo’s proposed discovery were to uncover some evidence to support his theory about UCLA purportedly condoning the misuse of the athletics admissions process to garner donations (and Salcedo provides no reason to think that it would),” the filing said, “that would not show that UCLA condoned its coaches accepting personal bribes to pass off non-athletes as bona fide recruits.”

Salcedo’s proposed subpoena to UCLA also sought information regarding children or relatives of staffers at the school being admitted as recruited athletes. The Times reported that at least 18 students admitted as recruits in recent years were children of administrators or coaches or had close ties to them. They included a student who joined UCLA’s gymnastics team as a recruited athlete despite no competitive experience in the sport.

“This also is irrelevant,” the filing said. “It is a leap too far to say that, if some coaches helped friends or family get admitted as student-athletes, UCLA therefore must have approved of Salcedo pocketing hundreds of thousands in bribes and giving away a soccer scholarship to a non-soccer player.”

The filing added: “If anything, such discovery would taint the truth-finding process. Salcedo cannot backfill gaps in his knowledge by collecting evidence after the fact about UCLA’s conduct. The subpoenas, however, seek to do just that.”

Source: https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2020-02-28/ucla-asks-judge-jorge-salcedo-court-documents-subpoena-request

Telescope Developments (or lack thereof)

Mauna Kea decommissioning plan pushed back

Hawaii Star-Advertiser via UCOP Daily News Clips, Timothy Hurley, 3-1-20

The first two of five Mauna Kea telescopes planned to be decommissioned in exchange for development of the Thirty Meter Telescope are scheduled to be removed from the mountain by 2023, according to the latest plan outlined by officials with the University of Hawaii. The plan pushes back the targeted decommissioning deadline for the telescopes that was described in a resolution of the UH Board of Regents in November. According to that resolution, the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory and the UH-Hilo Hoku Kea teaching telescope were to be removed no later than Dec. 31, 2021. 

But while progress has been made in the extensive decommissioning process, the effort is going to take longer on both accounts, said Greg Chun, UH executive director of Mauna Kea stewardship. Meanwhile, the fate of the TMT continues to be murky as the $1.4 billion-plus pro­ject has been stalled by legal and regulatory hurdles and protests over the last five years. Although the current truce between the TMT and its opponents is tentatively set to conclude at the end of the month, the international consortium planning to develop the next-generation telescope has indicated it has no immediate plans to start construction and the ki‘ai “protectors” have vowed to once again guard Mauna Kea Access Road against construction vehicles.

Chun said the deconstruction and site restoration work for the Caltech observatory is set to begin next year and be completed by late 2022. The project, expected to be paid for by Caltech, will include the removal of the dome, outbuildings and related infrastructure along with the restoration of the site. The astronomical instruments have already been removed from the observatory. A draft environmental assessment under review by Caltech is expected to include technical surveys such as an environmental site study and hazardous materials evaluation.

The Hoku Kea’s deconstruction and site restoration is scheduled to begin in early 2023 and take about six months, Chun said. On Feb. 18 the Maunakea Management Board approved UH-Hilo’s formal notice of intent to decommission the telescope on the condition that the university proceed with planning and permitting for a replacement telescope. The process would include identifying a new location, possibly the Hale Pohaku mid-level facilities on Mauna Kea, he said.

Chun said the university is in the process of awarding a contract to identify a location and begin planning for the new teaching telescope, a facility that would be smaller than other telescopes at the summit. According to November’s resolution, a determination would be made on the decommissioning of the remaining three observatory sites on or by Dec. 30, 2025. Removing five current telescopes is a condition of the TMT’s conservation district use permit. Construction of the 18 story-tall telescope itself is expected to take at least 10 years.

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State is seeking information about those who provided support to TMT protesters

Michael Brestovansky | Hawaii Tribune-Herald | Saturday, February 29, 2020

Lawyers for opponents of the Thirty Meter Telescope filed a petition Friday seeking to reverse a January court decision that would allow the state attorney general to subpoena the financial records of a nonprofit providing funding for TMT protesters. In late January, the attorney general’s office was authorized by a state judge to subpoena the bank records of KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for environmental issues in Hawaii. Attorney General Clare Connors claimed that subpoena was warranted because KAHEA was supporting illegal protests by establishing a fund for the protesters on Maunakea, and had also misfiled financial statements.

On Friday, attorneys for a group of anonymous donors to KAHEA filed a petition to the Hawaii Supreme Court requesting that the court rescind the state’s order allowing Connors to subpoena KAHEA’s records, arguing that such a subpoena would reveal the donors’ identities and violate their rights to privacy. “From our clients’ perspective, it’s clear that this is an unwarranted attack on their privacy,” said one of the donors’ lawyers, Maui attorney Lance Collins. Collins said the attempted subpoena is a clear attempt to intimidate opponents state-supported projects, which sent state officers to clear the Maunakea Access Road last July after protesters blocked the road in protest of the construction of TMT.

“It’s not the first time a state has tried to do this,” Collins said, citing the 1958 Supreme Court Case NAACP v. Alabama, wherein the state of Alabama attempted to subpoena the records of the African-American civil rights organization NAACP, including a list of its members in Alabama. “It’s just a shame that the person trying to do it now is the Attorney General of Hawaii,” he said. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Alabama in 1958, citing the right to privacy of law-abiding citizens.

Connors also issued a subpoena to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for similar reasons in September, and also to Hawaiian Airlines to determine the identities of people who donated frequent flyer miles to protesters, although the latter subpoena was withdrawn. The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii issued a statement in January expressing concern that the attorney general’s office is abusing its power and that such actions have a “chilling effect on everyone’s rights.” Collins said the state Supreme Court can dismiss or deny the petition in the KAHEA case, or can allow it to go through, which will require both sides to attend hearings to resolve the issue. However, before that decision can be made, the court also needs to decide whether Connors or First Circuit Judge James Ashford, who approved the subpoena, should respond to it.

“Generally, I think it’s unconscionable,” said protest leader Noe Noe Wong-Wilson. “It just seems like a strange way to go about it.” Wong-Wilson said KAHEA has been very supportive of the anti-TMT protests in accordance to its mission of social justice for Native Hawaiians. The subpoena also corresponds with a bill currently passing through the state Senate that would block such investigations.

Senate Bill 42, which was introduced last year by Maui, Molokai and Lanai Sen. Kalani English, would prohibit the attorney general from conducting investigations “in connection with and under circumstances during a period of time in which it is clear that the attorney general’s goals are conflicted with native Hawaiian rights.” SB 42 has received passionate support and opposition, Wong-Wilson said, and has passed through at least one committee this legislative session.

Source: https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2020/02/29/hawaii-news/state-is-seeking-information-about-those-who-provided-support-to-tmt-protesters/

Anything you can do, I can do better, says Berkeley

Only $5.49 billion? Irving Berlin would have appreciated the one-upmanship:

Remember the UC Dispute With Elsevier? Lots Don't

Remember the UC Dispute With Elsevier? If you have forgotten, you are not alone. Apparently, not many UC folks have been inconvenienced by the decision not to subscribe on Elsevier's terms.

From the Bruin:

The UC’s contract with the publisher Elsevier, which owns over 2,960 journals, expired Jan. 1, 2019, after contract negotiations stalled. Elsevier terminated the UC’s access to recent articles published in its online repository ScienceDirect in July, but the UC still retains access to all Elsevier articles published before 2019...

UC polled researchers about the split with Elsevier. The poll, which was conducted online and closed Feb. 21, asked UC affiliates to rate their support for the separation. It also asked them about the impact on their work and what alternative resources they use to access published research.

Apart from the poll, UCLA Library has received little feedback from researchers and faculty following the termination of the contract, said university librarian Virginia Steel. “I expected to receive a lot of comments, but I only got maybe six emails,” Steel said. “There were more supportive emails than there were comments about concerns. … It’s been really quiet.”...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2020/02/27/ucs-termination-of-elsevier-contract-has-had-limited-negative-impact/

UC-Davis seems to be calmer than the scary headline - Part 2

A student at the University of California, Davis, does not have the highly transmissible new coronavirus and can now leave quarantine, the university announced Saturday. His roommates, who had been put in isolation, also can return to their normal lives.

The student, who lived in UCD’s Kearney Hall, had been exposed to someone who had coronavirus and subsequently had come down with a runny nose and cough. He left the campus on Tuesday.

UCD officials said they would maintain an intensified cleaning program, and they stressed that students should continue regular handwashing and other good hygiene practices to thwart the respiratory illness...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article240773866.html