Berkeley Settlement on Remote Education

There has been litigation against UC-Berkeley under the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding educational materials online and access to them by disabled persons who may have problems with sight or hearing. Yours truly dimly recalls that UC-Berkeley at one point handed over videos of past lectures to some kind of nonprofit entity independent of the university so the material could remain online.

A settlement by Berkeley with the US Department of Justice has now been reached. Presumably, it would affect all UC campuses, not just Berkeley, regarding future access to such material. What remains unclear is exactly how this settlement affects the proliferation of online courses that developed during the pandemic. For example, Zoom will create a transcript - essentially computer-written and thus not always accurate - of lectures. But it does not have a mechanism for generating sign language. Many faculty have posted recordings of lectures for in-person classes. What is the status of that activity?

In any case, the news release announcing the consent decree agreed to by Berkeley and the Justice Department is below:

The Justice Department announced today that it has filed a proposed consent decree in federal court to resolve allegations that the Regents of the University of California on behalf of the University of California, Berkeley (collectively, UC Berkeley) violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because much of UC Berkeley’s free online content is inaccessible to individuals with hearing, vision, and manual disabilities. The proposed consent decree was filed together with a complaint setting forth the allegations of discrimination.

“By entering into this consent decree, UC Berkeley will make its content accessible to the many people with disabilities who want to participate in and access the same online educational opportunities provided to people without disabilities,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This decree will provide people with disabilities access to the numerous free online courses, conferences, lectures, performances and other programming offered by UC Berkeley and its faculty, providing lifelong learning opportunities to millions of people.”  

UC Berkeley makes conferences, lectures, sporting events, graduation ceremonies and other university events available to the public on its websites and on other online platforms, including its YouTube and Apple Podcasts channels. It also makes courses available on its UC BerkeleyX platform. Much of this online content is not accessible to people with disabilities because it lacks captions and transcripts for individuals who are deaf and alternative text describing visual images for individuals who are blind. It is also formatted in a way that does not allow individuals with disabilities to access the content using screen readers or other assistive technology.

Under the three-and-a-half-year long consent decree, which requires court approval, UC Berkeley will make all future and the vast majority of its existing online content accessible to people with disabilities. This includes BerkeleyX courses, university websites and video and podcast content on its YouTube, Apple Podcasts and other third-party platforms. UC Berkeley will also revise its policies, train relevant personnel, designate a web accessibility coordinator, conduct accessibility testing of its online content and hire an independent auditor to evaluate the accessibility of its content...

Full news release at https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-agreement-university-california-berkeley-make-online-content.

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Sometimes No (US) News is Good News - Part 4

We have been tracking the law schools that are pulling out of cooperation with the US News and World Report ratings system.* As we have noted, UCLA seems reluctant to pull out. But more schools that are pulling out have been reported since our last posting: Michigan and Duke are the latest. So the full listing so far is Harvard, Yale, UC-Berkeley, Stanford, Michigan, and Duke. From Higher Ed Dive:

...Michigan Law Dean Mark West credited Yale University’s dean, Heather Gerken, for being first among a string of top law schools’ leaders by saying Wednesday the institution will not participate in the rankings amid concerns their methodology discourages support for public-interest careers and low-income students. “Although we have had sustained discussion for years within the Quad about parting ways with the rankings, it would have been difficult for us to take this step alone,” West wrote in a public letter...

Full story at https://www.highereddive.com/news/stanford-michigan-duke-northwestern-us-news-rankings-join-yale-harvard-berkeley-columbia-georgetown/637123/.

As others pull out, UCLA might well feel pressure to reconsider staying in.

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/sometimes-no-us-news-is-good-news-part-3.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/sometimes-no-us-news-is-good-news-part-2.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/sometimes-no-us-news-is-good-news.html.

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UPDATE/Correction: Columbia and Georgetown should have been included in the list of law schools pulling out of the ratings.

Satellite Questions

Yours truly was reminded about UCLA's purchase of a satellite campus for $80 million in Palos Verdes from a now-defunct small Catholic college. We have blogged about that purchase at various times since it was announced in late September.*

One thing we noted was the problem of access; getting there from Westwood by public transit involved close to three hours and a lot of walking. Getting there by car (or perhaps some shuttle bus that UCLA could run) entailed a trip on the ever-congested 405 and something like an hour under good conditions.

Finally, there was the matter of how much help the satellite campus could be in dealing with promised enrollment increases. We noted that the now-closed college had only a little over 500 students.

So, yours truly was a bit surprised to read the statement below in an editorial in the Daily Bruin:

...The $80 million land acquisition is the largest in UCLA history and is expected to make way for 3,000 more undergraduate students and 350 more graduate students. The UC plans to produce 200,000 more undergraduate and graduate degrees across the system by 2030...

Full editorial at https://dailybruin.com/2022/11/20/editorial-ucla-campus-expansion-fails-to-address-more-immediate-concerns.

In short, roughly six times the enrollment of the former college is somehow to be placed on the new satellite campus which is relatively inaccessible from Westwood. In short, there is a disconnect here which has not so far been explained.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/09/new-satellite-campus.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/10/now-what.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/10/and-there-is-this-to-consider.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/10/united-campus.html.

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Sometimes No (US) News is Good News - Part 3

Even less news

Although UCLA's law school is apparently reluctant to join the rush away from US News and World Report ratings, Columbia, Stanford, and Georgetown have now pulled out. As our prior posts have noted, they are joining UC-Berkeley, Harvard, and Yale.* From Inside Higher Ed

The law schools of Columbia, Georgetown and Stanford Universities all announced on Friday that they would leave the U.S. News & World Report rankings... 

A statement from Jenny Martinez, dean at Stanford, said, “We agree with many of the points that other schools have presented about how the rankings methodology distorts incentives in ways that are harmful to legal education as a whole. For example, the U.S. News ranking methodology inappropriately discourages public service by treating students whose schools provide fellowships to support such work much the same as it treats students who are unemployed. In a world where interdisciplinary expertise is increasingly important, it also treats students pursuing another advanced degree, such as an M.B.A. or Ph.D., as unemployed.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2022/11/21/columbia-georgetown-and-stanford-law-schools-quit-%E2%80%98us-news%E2%80%99.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/sometimes-no-us-news-is-good-news-part-2.html and https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/sometimes-no-us-news-is-good-news.html.

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They paid it no mind

There is behind-the-scenes litigation going on regarding the chancellor of UC-San Diego. As noted in a blog post yesterday, however, there was a presentation at the Regents last week about the strategic plan for UC-San Diego made mainly by the chancellor.* And the Regents clearly paid the accusations no mind. From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The former director of investigations for the University of California alleges in a lawsuit that he was fired for challenging major changes to a critical review of the management style of UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla. John A. Torres filed the lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court in October and names the University of California Board of Regents and Alexander Bustamante, a senior vice president in the UC Office of the President, as defendants. The lawsuit arose from an investigation that the president’s office launched in 2018 after it received a whistleblower complaint against Khosla. Nine current and former UCSD employees later told the Union-Tribune that an investigator asked them whether the chancellor had exhibited bullying behavior toward campus employees.

Torres says in his lawsuit that he participated in the investigation. He claims that the Regents and Bustamante “took steps to ‘protect’ the UCSD Chancellor by both limiting the scope of the investigation to not investigate gender discrimination allegations and by removing findings submitted by the investigator regarding discrimination, bullying, alcohol use and other inappropriate and illegal behavior by Chancellor Khosla.” The lawsuit also alleges that UC President Michael Drake commissioned a review of the whistleblower case after learning that gender discrimination allegations had not been investigated. Torres claims that he told University of California officials that “improper government activity” had occurred during the 2018 investigation, including numerous statements that Bustamante made to him about “protecting” Khosla...

Full story at https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2022-11-19/torres-lawsuit-uc-khosla-investigation.

Presumably, the Regents were briefed on this matter at some point in a closed session. Of course, we have no way of knowing what they have been told.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/watch-regents-meeting-of-nov-17-2022.html.

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No Change

As blog readers will know, every week we peruse the latest data on new weekly claims for unemployment insurance in California for signs of a recession. Essentially, there is no sign of a recession in that indicator and no notable change from last week.

The latest claims data are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.

The Big Ten Rumor Mill Continues to Spin

The rumor mill continues to spin after the Regents delayed their decision on UCLA's move to the Big Ten. Excerpt from the Mercury News:

The New York Times reported the Pac-12 is willing to pay [a] $15 million exit fee to the Big Ten and give UCLA larger payouts for staying put. The report also says the Pac-12’s media rights are estimated to be 10 percent lower than the initial $42 million to $47 million projections. Are you hearing the same? 

The Hotline [has] not confirmed the exit fee. Nor are we convinced the financial and legal entanglements would end with a $15 million check. However, the media rights range cited by the NYT meshes with our reporting. The conference expected a deal in excess of $40 million per school if UCLA reversed course because of competition (among TV networks) for access to the Los Angeles market. And as the Hotline explained weeks ago, the Big 12’s decision to sign an early renewal with Fox and ESPN — and accept below-market valuations — lowered the floor for the Pac-12.

Essentially, it established a benchmark for networks to use to drive down the price. In our view, there are three valuation ranges for the Pac-12 without UCLA:

— High: $35 million-to-$40 million per school

— Medium: $32 million-to-$35 million per school

— Low: $29 million-to-$32 million per school

...We continue to believe that a reversal [by the Regents of UCLA's move to the Big 10] is highly unlikely. If anything, the odds have gotten a tad longer: Were there enough votes to overturn the decision, it would be clear at this point.

As a result, our updated projections are the following:

85 percent: Regents express disappointment; do nothing

10 percent: Regents require UCLA to subsidize Cal for lost revenue

4 percent: Regents force a reversal

1 percent: UCLA reverses willingly after Pac-12 offers a cash carrot

Until that 85 percent becomes 100 percent, the Hotline will continue to cover the developments...

Full story at https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/11/18/hotline-mailbag-impact-of-uc-regents-delay-options-for-the-pac-12-ranking-the-coaches-and-why-the-football-brands-matter/.

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