Listen to the Regents Health Services Committee: Oct. 9, 2018

As promised yesterday, we now present links to the UC Regents Health Services Committee of October 9, 2018. We preserve these recordings because the Regents delete them after one year for no particular reason.

The meeting began with public comments. There was only one speaker who complained about Regental participation in a lawsuit in India against generic drug manufacturers that were producing a prostate drug in which UC has a patent interest.

There was continued push at the committee for the campus health enterprises to have more autonomy in such matters as budgets, compensation, and capital projects. Beyond that, there were presentations on various activities in health care including UCLA cardiac services, plans to extend UC medicine into the San Joaquin Valley, hospital bed sore avoidance, and the use of artificial intelligence and information technology in health care (including work with Google). Regent Lansing raised the issue of whether the various campuses should specialize rather than each doing the same thing.

You can hear the meeting at the links below:

or direct to:
https://archive.org/details/RegentsHealthServices10918

We also provide a video excerpt on alcoholism, heart attacks, and other causes of death in California by Dr. Atul Butte of UC-San Francisco:

Dirty Laundry at the UC Investment Office - Part 2

We noted some dirty laundry at the UC Investment Office back in early September.* Now there is this:

Richard Blum, a $100 Million UC Investment, Feinstein Campaign Donations: Business As Usual at UC?

Dianne Feinstein’s husband and the UC system are no strangers to controversy surrounding their investment and business practices.

by Matthew Cunningham-Cook and David Sirota, 10-15-18, Capital and Main**

University of California regents approved a nine-figure investment in a private equity fund run by a major donor to Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose husband sits on the regents’ board. The investment was disclosed just as some of the private equity fund’s overseers and advisers were pumping thousands of dollars of donations into Feinstein’s campaign, according to documents reviewed by Capital & Main.

In the fall of 2017, UC regents decided to shift $100 million worth of university endowment and pension resources into the RISE fund, operated by TPG. That firm was founded by David Bonderman, who has forged extensive business relationships with Feinstein’s husband, regent Richard Blum. Over the past quarter-century, Blum served as a TPG executive, founded a fund overseeing TPG’s Asia business and partnered with TPG on numerous investment deals with his own investment fund, Blum Capital. The $100 million investment was UC’s first investment with TPG.

Since 1992, Bonderman and his wife have donated more than $32,000 to Feinstein’s political campaigns. Additionally, donors associated with the RISE fund’s board and advisory panel have contributed more than $65,000 to Feinstein’s campaigns and political action committee. That includes $15,400 of donations in the three-week period surrounding the disclosure of UC’s investment in the RISE fund. Those donations came from Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne, as well as from Ariel Investments president Mellody Hobson. Marc Benioff and Hobson, who is married to George Lucas of Star Wars fame, sit on the RISE Fund’s Founders Board.

In general, securities laws require public officials to make investment decisions on the basis of merit, not personal relationships or political contributions. A 2010 Securities and Exchange Commission rule was explicitly designed to deter financial firms from using campaign contributions to influence investment decisions.

“The decision by the UC regents to make an investment in a fund run by a close friend and business partner of Richard Blum raises potential issues of institutional corruption.”

Blum argues that there is no conflict of interest.

“I’ve never heard of the RISE Fund,” he told Capital & Main. “We used to be partners with TPG. We’ve done investments together. But I have nothing to do with TPG or the RISE Fund… [The University of California investment office] never checks with me on anything.”

Blum conceded that, in addition to his business and personal relationships with Bonderman and TPG, he also knows another top TPG and RISE Fund executive, Jim Coulter, and added, “I occasionally get together with [UC Chief Investment Officer] Jagdeep [Singh Bachher] and we talk about philosophy.”

Singh Bachher is in charge of oversight and management of UC’s investment in the RISE Fund.

Capital & Main asked TPG if it had disclosed its executives’ relationships with Blum and donations to Feinstein. In a statement, TPG said that it “adheres to the strongest compliance standards and all political donations are subjected to compliance review and clearance, and in the case of federal officials are publicly disclosed through the Federal Election Commission. TPG responded in the ordinary course to due diligence questions posed by UC in connection with its investment.”

The University of California forwarded the regents’ conflict of interest policy and made no other comment. Senator Feinstein did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

“The decision by the UC regents to make an investment in a fund run by a close friend and business partner of Richard Blum raises potential issues of institutional corruption,” said Jay Youngdahl, an attorney and pension expert. “When money saved for workers’ retirement is placed into high-fee investments that benefit those close to politicians, questions need to be asked and answered. Investment funds in several states have suffered problems with similar practices.”

...Meanwhile, the UC Retirement Plan has lately been engulfed in scandal over pay-to-play allegations.

In early September, the pension trade publication Institutional Investor published a report showing that the retirement system’s chief investment officer faced “serious charges of mismanagement.” The report also highlighted allegations from an anonymous tipster with inside information that Bachher had placed $250 million in a fund run by a former UC regent, Paul Wachter, who had participated in Bachher’s hiring. The investment was opposed by other top investment staff at UC, the article said.

Full story at: https://capitalandmain.com/richard-blum-a-100-million-dollar-uc-investment-feinstein-campaign-donations-business-as-usual-at-the-board-of-regents-1015

Also at https://splinternews.com/why-did-the-university-of-california-invest-100-millio-1829756662
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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2018/09/dirty-laundry-at-uc-investment-office.html
**https://capitalandmain.com/about-us

UCLA History: Registration

Registration line in 1930

PS: In case you are wondering (or even if you aren't), yours truly has not forgotten about the meeting of the Regents Health Services Committee last week. He has preserved the recording and will post about it in due course. (But not one the courses the students above are waiting to enroll in!)

Countdown for the Harvard Admissions Trial

At Harvard, a trial about affirmative action starts tomorrow (Monday, October 15). UC is somewhat shielded from the outcome because, as we have noted in prior posts, California's Prop 209 already bans affirmative action in admissions at public universities. Nonetheless, there could be fallout.

Unease sweeping the halls of Harvard on eve of race-based admissions suit

By Deirdre Fernandes, Boston Globe, October 13, 2018

As Harvard University prepares to defend its selective, highly secretive admissions process in a Boston courtroom Monday, outside groups are marshaling their forces, with protesters descending on the city, and a rally planned outside the university’s iron gates. The high-stakes case accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian-American applicants has reopened a sharp national debate over race, equity, and merit. And on campus, it has forced students to confront uneasy and intensely personal questions about racial diversity, privilege, and their place at the Ivy League institution.

“It’s forcing me to talk about race in a way that I’ve not done,” said Priyanka Kaura, 27, an Indian-American graduate student from Pennsylvania at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Kaura said she supports affirmative action, and is careful about acknowledging there may be concerns about bias against Asian applicants, especially when discussing the issue with other Asian-Americans. “I haven’t lost any close relationships yet.” 

“It’s on everybody’s mind,” added Victor Agbafe, 22, a senior whose parents emigrated from Nigeria, and who grew up in Dallas and Wilmington, N.C. “I think the case has the potential to be huge.”

In animated — sometimes fraught — conversations among friends in dining halls and dorm rooms, in Facebook groups and private texts, in classroom discussions and group gatherings, Harvard’s students are grappling with the issues raised by the lawsuit.

A ruling against Harvard would forever alter admissions, especially at elite colleges — for the worse. Unlike previous affirmative action lawsuits that primarily hinged on if race-conscious admissions practices benefited black and Hispanic students while hurting white students, this case pivots on Asian-American applicants.

The lawsuit was filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a group representing Asian-Americans who allege Harvard’s admissions policy discriminates against them. As proof, the organization points to six years of Harvard admissions data that its experts argue indicates Asian-Americans were rated lower on personal qualities, such as courage and kindness, which hurt their chances of gaining admission. The group also alleges Harvard limits the number of Asian-American students it admits every year, a practice called racial-balancing, which is unlawful. 

Harvard denies any discrimination and insists its admissions practices are legal and ensure that all students learn on a diverse campus and are exposed to different ideas and classmates from various backgrounds. At Harvard, 21 percent of students are Asian, nearly 12 percent are Hispanic, 8 percent are black; the majority of the campus is white. The university is also quick to point out that Students for Fair Admissions is led by Edward Blum. He is a conservative white scholar who unsuccessfully challenged the University of Texas admissions process and led an effort that unraveled parts of the Voting Rights Act.

Yet Harvard administrators worry the trial could open up fault lines among students and alumni at the country’s oldest and most prestigious institution of higher education. The trial is likely to raise questions about who is deemed worthy and special enough for one of the few slots at a university heralded for educating future presidents, corporate titans, poets, and prizewinners. Of some 42,000 applicants, Harvard enrolls just 1,600 or so freshmen every year. Entry itself is a privilege and viewed as a ticket to future success. 

Students for Fair Admissions “is likely to make provocative assertions that will receive public attention and cause some to question our academic practices,” Harvard president Lawrence Bacow wrote in an e-mail to the Harvard community last week. “I would hope all of us recognize, however, that we are members of one community — and will continue to be so long after this trial is in the rearview mirror. What kind of community we will be, however, will be determined by how we treat each other the next few weeks.”

Some Asian-American students say they already feel conflicted about the lawsuit. They support diversity on campus, but some say the case has reinforced warnings they received from parents and counselors in high school that they had to get far better grades than their peers, jump into leadership roles, and appear less stereotypically Asian in their applications to earn a spot in the most elite colleges. 

Rainbow Yeung, a senior majoring in molecular and cellular biology at Harvard who rushes between post-graduate job hunting and her leadership responsibilities at her house, said she worries Asians have been neglected in US history and American media. And she doesn’t want their concerns about potential bias in admissions to also be silenced.

“I am scared of what the results of the suit might mean for affirmative action,” Yeung said. However, I just don’t want Asian students to be suffering from negative consequences due to our race.”

Ivy Yan, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 2015 and is now a graduate student there, has found herself at odds with Harvard administrators. She fought Harvard’s efforts to squash a union for graduate students and as an undergraduate rallied alumni and other student groups after she felt the university’s response to e-mail threats received by many Asian-American female students was inadequate. But now, Yan is helping organize a rally Sunday in favor of affirmative action and is bringing together many of Harvard’s supporters.

“I am firmly anti-Blum, but not pro-Harvard,” she said. 

Still, she understands why many Chinese-Americans, especially those who immigrated more recently, are backing this lawsuit. Even her younger sister questioned the need for affirmative action until recently, Yan said. 

“The people on the anti-side are my people,” she said. “This is the American dream for many immigrants and the admissions process — it takes into account something you don’t really understand, and it can be alienating.” 

The case against Harvard’s affirmative action policy is generally seen as a conservative cause and even gained support from the Justice Department under the Trump administration. Yet some conservative students acknowledge that admission to the elite school is based on a complicated formula, with race just one factor among many. Star athletes, children of financial donors, students whose parents attended Harvard, and applicants from under-represented states all get special consideration.

“Who got here and how they got here — everybody has things that got them here,” said Conor Healy, a senior from Canada who last year invited controversial sociologist Charles Murray to speak at Harvard amid protests from minority students. “It’s personal. . . . I knew that when I applied, nobody was entitled to a spot . . . and they paid a lot of attention to personal details of individuals. It’s just not straightforward. Healy said private institutions should be able to dictate their admissions standards.

Some students, though, feel Harvard does too little to encourage diversity and that if it loses the case, there will be even fewer black and Hispanic students on campus. 

As Paola Martinez waited last week for a movie screening at Harvard’s newly renovated Smith Campus Center, where red and orange modern couches are surrounded by ceiling-to-floor glass windows, she scoffed at the implication in the lawsuit that Harvard has too few Asian-American students. Martinez, 37, grew up in the Dominican Republic and takes classes and works at the Harvard Extension School, a program for adult learners. She said black and Latino students and faculty are rarer than white and Asian-Americans. This lawsuit is an effort to “keep students of color out of environments where they can succeed,” Martinez said. “At least give us a chance to prove that we’re smart enough and that we could do something.” 

Andrea Loera, 23, a Latina who grew up in Texas and is a graduate student at Havard Law School, said she worries that many on-campus discussions about the lawsuit are being held among students of color, instead of the broader community. 

A teach-in she attended on a rainy evening last week drew more than 50 Harvard students; most were Asian and other minorities, with just a handful of white students. Loera said she understands that some students of color are concerned about drawing too much attention to themselves, especially around a case that questions whether they belong at Harvard.

“You already feel like an outsider here,” Loera said. “It becomes a personal topic so fast. And it’s so hard to talk about it as a minority, especially in a school that is so white.

Source: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/10/13/unease-sweeping-hallsof-harvard/7spR4BivYyOPLh9kVpBqNP/story.html

UC Health Strike News - Part 2

From the Sacramento Bee:

The largest employee union at the University of California, AFSCME Local 3299, announced Friday that its patient-care technical workers will go on a three-day strike Oct. 23-25 at (the five) UC health systems across the state.

The job action will involve as many as 39,000 workers statewide, composed of the 15,000 members of AFSCME 3299’s patient-care unit, 9,000 from AFSCME’s service unit and 15,000 research, technical and health-care professionals represented by UPTE-CWA. AFSCME’s service unit and UPTE-CWA voted to strike in sympathy with the patient care workers.

Both AFSCME and UPTE-CWA have been negotiating with the UC for more than a year, and their leaders say negotiations have stalled over issues such as outsourcing, pay, retirement benefits and health-care premiums.

“The University of California has continuously ignored workers’ concerns over the outsourcing of good middle-class jobs and the inequality and insecurity that it creates,” said Monica De Leon, vice president of AFSCME 3299’s patient-care technical unit.

In a prepared statement issued after AFSCME announced the strike vote, UC leaders said: “Union leaders refuse to allow their own members to vote on UC’s competitive contract offer, instead spending months threatening and now conducting a strike vote. Rather than engage in constructive talks at the negotiating table, AFSCME leaders are using the threat of a strike as a scare tactic.”...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article219963130.html

We again note that a strike may, or may not, occur, depending on the actions of negotiators.

More State Cash

The state controller reports that for the first quarter of the current fiscal year (2018-19), revenues to the General Fund ran about $1.4 billion above estimates made when the budget was enacted last June.

Personal income tax receipts and sales tax receipts were up about 5% above forecast levels. The corporate tax was up 8% above forecast.

So there is no cash pressure on the state at the moment. If a downturn occurred, the state could likely go for about a year before the crunch was felt.

Nonetheless, recent stock market events are a reminder of the dependence of the state on a relatively small number of high-income earners whose taxable income is sensitive to the ups and downs of financial markets.

You can find the controller's September statement at:
https://www.sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/September%202018%20Statement%20of%20General%20Fund%20Cash%20Receipts%20and%20Disbursements....pdf

UC Health Strike News

AFSCME Local 3299 announced Thursday morning that the 15,000 patient-care technical workers in its ranks voted to authorize a strike against the University of California after reaching a deadlock in labor contract negotiations.

The strike vote received approval from 96 percent of AFSCME 3299 members, AFSCME leaders said, and the patient-care workers will be joined on the picket line by 9,000 employees in AFSCME’s service unit and 15,000 members of the UPTE-CWA union, who voted to join in solidarity...

The strike dates have not yet been set. The union is required to provide a 10-day advance notification of the dates...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article219858245.html

Blog readers should note that a strike vote does not mean a strike will occur. Typically, a union won't call for a vote unless it's sure a large majority of its members will favor authorizing a strike. (It's like the old adage for lawyers: Don't ask a question unless you know the answer.) Thus, the vote is part of the bargaining process and a show of support by members aimed at pressuring the management side.