Perhaps there will be more detail tomorrow.
No word on what happened to the subsequent proposals related to the UC calendar and high executive pay that had been put on the agenda by petition.
Again, perhaps there will be more info tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
More on toil and trouble at the Assembly - Update
Just noting...
Reuters/Ipsos poll.
More poll results and story at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-approval-rating-dips-many-wary-his-wielding-power-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-04-21/.
There could be toil and trouble at today's systemwide Assembly
As blog readers will know, there is scheduled today at the systemwide Academic Senate Assembly discussion and vote on two issues put on the agenda by petition. One deals with a possibly systemwide academic calendar - which seems to be code for everyone moving to a uniform semester system including campuses now on quarters. (UC-SF, with no undergraduates, is not included.)
The other proposal is basically a complaint about excessive managerial pay. Senate leadership is not happy with either - or being forced by petition to deal with them. The two petition proposals appear as the last item on the agenda, Item VIII. One can thus imagine that the meeting will run out of time, or out of a quorum, and the items will be delayed to some subsequent meeting.
That possibility seems even more likely given the prior Item VII dealing with an ethnic studies requirement for high school students applying to UC. The state legislature has effectively put that matter on the agenda, but there has been political controversy over the issue there. Governor Newsom has been on both sides of the issue. He put no money in his January budget proposal for high schools to implement the proposal which means - assuming he doesn't add money for implementation to his upcoming May Revise budget proposal - that he doesn't actually want implementation anytime soon. Of course, the legislature could put money in for implementation, and - in theory - the governor could use his line-item veto to remove it. Or not. In any event, there is likely to be time-consuming debate on Item VII.
Below is an excerpt from the Assembly's agenda for Item VII:
VII. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
1. Proposed revisions to Senate Regulation 424.A.3 (A-G Ethnic Studies)
Background and Justification: In July 2024, the Academic Council voted to advance proposed revisions to Senate Regulation 424.A.3 for Assembly consideration. The amendment would introduce a new A-G ethnic studies requirement (also known as “Area H”) to the A–G course pattern for freshman admission to UC. This change aligns UC’s admissions criteria with California Assembly Bill (AB) 101, which calls for an ethnic studies graduation requirement for all public high schools beginning in 2029–2030. The proposal does not increase the total number of required A–G courses (minimum 15), but specifies that one course among the 15 must be an approved one-semester (halfunit) ethnic studies course. The revised proposal includes updated course criteria and guidelines developed by BOARS’ Ethnic Studies Implementation Workgroup, reflecting feedback received during two systemwide Academic Senate reviews—the most recent of which was conducted in 2023–2024.
The Assembly held an extensive discussion of the pros and cons of the proposal at its December 12, 2024 meeting. This discussion brought to light uncertainties surrounding state funding for AB 101 and unresolved implementation challenges. The Assembly passed a motion to postpone the vote on the A-G ethnic studies proposal until the April 2025 Assembly meeting when these issues could be more fully addressed and several matters could be clarified.
Since then, the Academic Senate has confirmed with UC State Governmental Relations and the State Board of Education that the California K-12 ethnic studies graduation requirement for public high schools will only take effect if the California Legislature appropriates funding for implementation. As of December 2024, no such appropriation has been made, and state officials have indicated that, without funding, the ethnic studies graduation requirement will not apply.
To further assess K–12 implementation readiness, UC High School Articulation conducted a 2025 follow-up survey of high schools offering A–G-approved courses. The survey asked about plans to develop or expand ethnic studies offerings, types of courses available, implementation challenges, and support needs. UC High School Articulation also updated its 2023 analysis to estimate how many current A–G courses might qualify as ethnic studies based on 2024–2025 course lists.
All related reports, background information, and FAQs shared in December 2024 are included in the meeting attachments.
ACTION REQUESTED: The Assembly considers endorsement of the proposal. If approved, it will be forwarded to President Drake to convey to the UC Board of Regents for further consideration.
(There follows a long listing of information about the proposed requirement.)
Source: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/assembly/assembly-agenda-4-23-25.pdf.
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Yours truly will be involved in another meeting when the Assembly meets. So he won't be able to deliver a blow-by-blow account of what happens to Items VII and VIII. But Politico has a lengthy piece about the ethnic studies controversy: [excerpt]
In January, the Palo Alto school board met to discuss requiring high schoolers to take courses covering the displacement of Native Americans and the Black Panthers’ role in the Civil Rights Movement. For one school board member, the day ended with death threats.
Teaching ethnic studies — courses about different cultures and historically marginalized groups — would not appear a likely source of controversy in the deep-blue, immigrant-heavy Silicon Valley city. But years of tension boiled over on a brisk winter night, over how the curriculum was released and the way oppression would be taught. In a school district where Asian students represent 40 percent of enrollees, some immigrants feel that the courses define power and privilege in a way that undermines the accomplishments of ethnic minorities.
“Asian Americans, many of whom came here with nothing and worked their way up from nothing — they see this course that labels us as privileged and powerful and perpetuating systemic oppression for having the audacity to build a good life,” said Karthi Gottipati, a student at Palo Alto High School who served as the student board representative last year...
But the rebellion over ethnic studies is largely not coming from conservative, overwhelmingly white districts where the mandate has been mostly accepted without controversy. Rather the conflict is playing out within the traditional Democratic coalition, pitting social-justice-oriented liberals against high-achieving immigrant groups and moderates who claim an alternative curriculum pushed by progressives goes too far. California’s ethnic studies debate has become a test case for the difficulty Democrats could face maintaining a racially mixed and highly educated coalition as school diversity issues move to the top of the national agenda in the second Trump era.
...California has led the country in moving toward universal ethnic studies, thanks to a push over the past decade by progressive educators and civil rights activists. In 2016, the Legislature overwhelmingly passed a first-in-the-nation law instructing state education officials to design an approach for teaching high school history with an emphasis on racial and ethnic differences. But as they worked to produce a model curriculum that individual districts could adapt to their demographics, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown balked at making new courses mandatory. Brown vetoed a 2018 bill to do so, citing concerns about what another graduation requirement would mean for “already overburdened” students.
California’s public universities have begun to embrace ethnic studies. The Legislature in 2020 voted to require California State University students to take one course as a graduation requirement across its campuses, and this month a recent alum filed paperwork to pursue a 2026 ballot initiative that would increase the system’s requirement to two. The University of California’s Academic Senate is currently considering whether to impose its own ethnic studies mandate.
But officials could not agree on what high schoolers should be taught. Ethnic studies is the only graduation requirement in California without state standards in the curriculum, leaving it ripe for political manipulation. External events, including the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, have altered the political dynamics around the courses even as broad support remains to teach ethnic studies.
...As the curriculum was being developed, progressives rallied behind an alternative “Liberated Ethnic Studies” model that aims to critique “power and oppression at the intersections of our society” such as white supremacy and patriarchy, encouraging students to challenge colonial and imperialist beliefs and connect with resistance movements for social justice. The curriculum is notably more sympathetic to Palestinians in teaching about the history of Mideast conflict.
...After Jewish groups expressed concern that students could be taught to view Jews as white oppressors, Newsom in 2020 vetoed another attempt to create an ethnic studies mandate. Newsom told the lawmaker who carried the bill that he “wanted a curriculum that would be … not offensive to any one particular group,” according to former Democratic Assemblymember Jose Medina.
Newsom reversed himself the following year after the Legislature’s Jewish Caucus put in amendments that it said at the time “expressly prohibit the use of curriculum that was rejected because of concerns about anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bias.” The updated model curriculum, which can guide districts but they are not required to follow, also added lessons about antisemitism and the Jewish, Arab, Armenian and Sikh American communities.
When Newsom approved the 2021 law, he praised ethnic studies courses that “enable students to learn their own stories, and those of their classmates, and a number of studies have shown that these courses boost student achievement over the long run — especially among students of color,” as he put it in a signing message. But he made sure to note that the courses should not include initial curriculum proposals that had been rejected by the state “due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.”
...The 2021 law requires all California high schools to offer ethnic studies as an elective course by the fall of 2025 and makes it a graduation requirement by 2029-30, but only if the Legislature follows through on funding it. The estimated cost of the program is $276 million for districts statewide per year in teachers’ salaries and new textbooks, the state’s Department of Education estimated in 2021. But Newsom notably omitted that money from the $322 billion budget proposal he introduced in January. A representative from Newsom’s Department of Finance told lawmakers who oversee education spending at an early March hearing that the governor did not plan to propose funding the course...
Full story at https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/20/this-high-school-course-is-dividing-districts-across-california-00299498.
Direct Pay for Student-Athletes Is Coming (if it isn't already here)
Objectors to the proposed settlement of three athlete-compensation antitrust cases against the NCAA and Power Five conferences [last week] continued pursuing their arguments against final approval of the deal in responses to filings made hours earlier by the principal parties that included presumption revisions to the agreement and their case for a notable non-revision revision to roster limits that also are part of the deal.
Lawyers for various objectors and objector groups combined to make 12 filings during the one-day window that U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken had established for such responses at the close of her hearing April 7 on whether to grant final approval of the agreement, which would cover roughly 390,000 athletes. (A couple of the filings were received by the court on Tuesday, but not posted to the public-facing case record until Wednesday).
At issue is the outcome of a 10-year settlement that include $2.8 billion in damages from the NCAA and the conferences that would go to current and former athletes — and their lawyers — over the 10 years and enable Division I schools to start paying athletes directly for use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) starting July 1, subject to a per-school cap that would increase over time and be based on a percentage of certain athletics revenues...
It's expected that Wilken will not seek further filings from either side in the matter, leaving the door open for her to either finalize settlement or reject it at any point. Wilken has acknowledged the need for a timely decision given the coming July 1 deadline...
Full story at https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2025/04/16/ncaa-house-settlement-nil-objectors/83121713007/.
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Similar and Very Different
About a month ago, we noted that federal revenue accounted for almost a third of the annual UC budget, the pie on the right.* A lot of that comes from med school receipts from research grants and revenues from Medicare and Medicaid. Since not all campuses have med schools, the percentage would vary considerably at the campus level with those with med schools more vulnerable than those without.
What about Harvard? It has a med school, but it doesn't own hospitals. It has a network of hospitals affiliated with it where research and training takes place. The alumni group at Columbia from which we have been drawing data about that university made an adjusted calculation for Harvard, factoring in the Harvard elements at affiliated hospitals.** The adjustment raised the Harvard operating budget to account for Harvard-related activity at the affiliated hospitals. In its calculation, almost 43% of the adjusted operating budget for Harvard comes from the feds, the pie on the left.
Given the roughness of the calculations for Harvard, we can say that Harvard and UC are similar on that dimension.
Where they are different is in operating scale and endowments. UC's operating budget is $53.6 billion. Harvard's budget is $6.5 billion but when adjusted as above it gets moved up to $12.8 billion. Harvard's endowment is $53.2 billion. So even on an adjusted basis, Harvard's endowment is over 4 times its operating budget. UC's systemwide endowment is $29.5 billion but the campuses have their own separate endowments. Even so, putting all the UC endowments together would get you a number just comparable to a year's operation.
As has been pointed out by many, endowments are not free money. Donations often earmark their funds for particular purposes. Still Harvard is (much) better positioned than UC for a war with the feds.
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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/03/almost-one-third.html.
Forget Princip. Maybe it should have been the Ruth Galanter award
On Friday, the New York Times reported that two Trump administration sources said an April 11 letter signed by three federal officials to Harvard President Alan Garber was “unauthorized” and should not have been sent. The letter demanded the Massachusetts university come under government oversight and make changes related to student and faculty conduct, admissions, alleged antisemitism on campus and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Harvard on Saturday pushed back on the assertion that the letter was sent in error, pointing out that the Trump administration had “doubled down” on its threats... “It remains unclear to us exactly what, among the government’s recent words and deeds, were mistakes or what the government actually meant to do and say,” the university said Saturday in a statement to The Washington Post. “But even if the letter was a mistake, the actions the government took this week have real-life consequences...
The White House did not respond to requests for comment, but a senior official there told the Times that the administration stood by the letter...
Full story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/04/19/harvard-trump-letter-mistake-unauthorized/.
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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/04/we-have-winner-of-gavrilo-princip-award.html.
Monday, April 21, 2025
Harvard's Lawsuit Today Against the Feds
Media release:
Upholding Our Values, Defending Our University
4-21-2025
Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
Over the course of the past week, the federal government has taken several actions following Harvard’s refusal to comply with its illegal demands. Although some members of the administration have said their April 11 letter was sent by mistake, other statements and their actions suggest otherwise. Doubling down on the letter’s sweeping and intrusive demands—which would impose unprecedented and improper control over the University—the government has, in addition to the initial freeze of $2.2 billion in funding, considered taking steps to freeze an additional $1 billion in grants, initiated numerous investigations of Harvard’s operations, threatened the education of international students, and announced that it is considering a revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world.
Moments ago, we filed a lawsuit to halt the funding freeze because it is unlawful and beyond the government’s authority. I encourage you to read our complaint.*
The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting. Research that the government has put in jeopardy includes efforts to improve the prospects of children who survive cancer, to understand at the molecular level how cancer spreads throughout the body, to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield. As opportunities to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease are on the horizon, the government is slamming on the brakes. The victims will be future patients and their loved ones who will suffer the heartbreak of illnesses that might have been prevented or treated more effectively. Indiscriminately slashing medical, scientific, and technological research undermines the nation’s ability to save American lives, foster American success, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation.
The government has cited the University’s response to antisemitism as a justification for its unlawful action. As a Jew and as an American, I know very well that there are valid concerns about rising antisemitism. To address it effectively requires understanding, intention, and vigilance. Harvard takes that work seriously. We will continue to fight hate with the urgency it demands as we fully comply with our obligations under the law. That is not only our legal responsibility. It is our moral imperative.
Before taking punitive action, the law requires that the federal government engage with us about the ways we are fighting and will continue to fight antisemitism. Instead, the government’s April 11 demands seek to control whom we hire and what we teach. Today, we stand for the values that have made American higher education a beacon for the world. We stand for the truth that colleges and universities across the country can embrace and honor their legal obligations and best fulfill their essential role in society without improper government intrusion. That is how we achieve academic excellence, safeguard open inquiry and freedom of speech, and conduct pioneering research—and how we advance the boundless exploration that propels our nation and its people into a better future.
We acknowledge that we have unfinished business. We need to ensure that the University lives up to its ideals by taking concrete steps to reaffirm a culture of free inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and academic exploration; making changes to our disciplinary systems so they will be more consistent and more effective in ensuring that our students, faculty, and staff take responsibility for their actions; implementing measures to ensure that all members of our community are safe and respected; and adopting important adjustments to the ways we build community—continuing to focus on individuals and their unique characteristics rather than their race. In the days ahead, I will say more about our progress in each of these areas.
We will also soon release the reports of the Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias and the Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias. I established these groups last year as part of our efforts to address intolerance in our community. The reports are hard-hitting and painful. They also include recommendations with concrete plans for implementation, which we welcome and embrace. No one in our community should experience bias, intolerance, or bigotry. We believe adoption of the recommendations and other measures will go far toward eradicating those evils on our campus.
The time ahead will demand much from each of us, but I am as confident as ever in our ability to meet our challenges with integrity and resolve, our minds set on the work before us and our hearts committed to the future of our beloved University.
Sincerely,
Alan M. Garber
Source: https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2025/upholding-our-values-defending-our-university/.
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From the lawsuit:
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
...Plaintiff respectfully requests an order:
a. expediting the resolution of this action to prevent further harm to Plaintiff;
b. declaring unlawful Defendants’ Freeze Order and attendant unconstitutional conditions in the April 3 and April 11 Letters, as well as any terminations of, freezes of, or refusals to grant or to continue federal funding undertaken pursuant to those agency actions;
c. vacating and setting aside Defendants’ Freeze Order and attendant unconstitutional conditions in the April 3 and April 11 Letters, as well as any terminations of, freezes of, or refusals to grant or to continue federal funding undertaken pursuant to those agency actions;
d. postponing the effectiveness of the Freeze Order and attendant unconstitutional conditionsin the April 3 and April 11 Letters, as well as any terminations of, freezes of, or refusals to grant or to continue federal funding undertaken pursuant to those agency actions;
e. permanently enjoining Defendants, their agents, and all persons acting in concert or participation with Defendants from implementing, maintaining, or in any way giving effect to the Freeze Order and attendant unconstitutional conditions in the April 3 and April 11 Letters, as well as any terminations of, freezes of, or refusals to grant or to continue federal funding undertaken pursuant to those agency actions;
f. permanently enjoining Defendants from violating Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights;
g. permanently enjoining Defendants from terminating, freezing, or refusing to grant or to continue any federal funding at issue in this case without complying with federal law, including the requirements of Title VI and agency regulations;
h. entering judgment in favor of Plaintiff;
i. awarding Plaintiff its reasonable costs and attorney’s fees in accordance with law, including but not limited to 42 U.S.C. § 1988; and
j. issuing any and all other such relief as the Court deems just and proper.
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*Full lawsuit at https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/04/Harvard-Funding-Freeze-Order-Complaint.pdf or https://ia800402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/Harvard%20lawsuit%20against%20Trump%20administration%204-21-2025.pdf.
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