Bye Bye Master Plan

Whatever the details, the Master Plan for Higher Education is fast disappearing:

From the LA Times: California community colleges will be able to offer bachelor’s degrees that duplicate programs at California State University and University of California schools... under legislation approved [last] Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The pair of bills scraps the state’s ban on community colleges offering any bachelor’s degree already available at CSU or UC, and replaces it with a system built around regional workforce needs and a district college’s performance. They cleared the legislature earlier this month after CSU and UC withdrew objections... The laws will take effect Jan. 1, 2028.

Chancellor Sonya Christian, who leads the community college system, had come out against the two related bills in the final days of the session. She said the versions lawmakers passed — and Newsom has approved — could create “more barriers” than currently exist for community colleges moving to provide new degree programs...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-09-18/california-community-college-bachelors-degrees-newsom-law.

Veto

From CalMatters: California college students without legal immigration status still cannot work at public colleges and universities after Gov. Gavin Newsom again vetoed a bill Sunday that would have given them that right. Assembly Bill 713 would have adopted an untested legal theory that argues that a 1986 federal law barring employers from hiring workers in the country without authorization doesn’t apply to state governments. The logic? That 40-year-old law doesn’t mention state governments as a type of employer that cannot hire workers without proper status.

But for the second time in three years, Newsom decided that adopting that theory for California would expose the state’s higher-education system to the wrath of the federal government...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/09/newsom-veto-students-wtihout-legal-status/.

As we have pointed out previously, the bill did not in fact impose a mandate on UC, unlike CSU and the community colleges. It left the ultimate decision to the Regents:

This article shall apply to the University of California, unless it is found to be inapplicable to the university, then, consistent with Section 67400, this article shall apply to the university only to the extent that the Regents of the University of California, by appropriate resolution, make it applicable.

See https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB713/id/3191073.

News accounts tend to omit this fact. Presumably, it was included in the bill because of the constitutional autonomy of the Regents.

All I know about Bloat... - Part 2

Yesterday, we posted a Boston Globe op ed of Sept. 9 from Prof. Barry Lam of Riverside concerning administrative bloat. As if on cue to illustrate his point, only a few days later, a 185-page document appeared on the systemwide Academic Senate website. We reproduce below just the 3-page cover letter that was part of that document. Should you want to read the full 185 pages, the link is at the bottom of this post. (But you shouldn't.)

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September 11, 2026

CHANCELLORS

ACADEMIC COUNCIL CHAIR SCOTT

LABORATORY DIRECTOR YELICK

ANR VICE PRESIDENT HUMISTON

Re: Systemwide Review of Proposed Presidential Policy: Relocation Assistance Act Policy for Real Estate Acquisitions and Leases

Dear Colleagues:

Enclosed for systemwide review are proposed revisions to Presidential Policy: Relocation Assistance Act Policy for Real Estate Acquisitions and Leases (Relocation Policy or Policy). The University is required to comply with the California Relocation Assistance Law (California Government Code Section 7260 et seq.), which requires that all public entities adopt rules and regulations to administer relocation assistance and to implement the payments under this law. The University approved its Relocation Policy in 1974 and last updated it in 2013.

The Relocation Policy is very technical and is required to conform to the Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Guidelines (“Guidelines”) adopted by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. Where possible, the Policy has been revised to address common University situations including the standard process for acquiring property, the expiration of long-term ground leases, and dealing with UC affiliated tenants in housing.

The University hired outside counsel to support the Policy revision process. The selected outside counsel worked on the 2013 update to the Policy and has had several minor engagements with campuses concerning the Policy interpretation. The revisions have been closely coordinated with UC Legal and the campus real estate offices and have been discussed at two systemwide conferences for UC real estate staff. No concerns have been expressed to date.

Systemwide Review

Systemwide review is a public review distributed to the Chancellors, the Chair of the Academic Council, the Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Vice President of Agriculture and Natural Resources requesting that they inform the general University community, especially affected employees, about policy proposals. Systemwide review also includes a mandatory, 90-day full Senate review.

Employees should be afforded the opportunity to review and comment on the draft policy. Attached is a Model Communication which may be used to inform non-exclusively represented employees about these proposals. Systemwide Labor Relations at the Office of the President is responsible for informing the bargaining units representing union membership about policy proposals.

We would appreciate receiving your comments no later than December 10, 2026. Please submit your comments to julie.wong@ucop.edu. If you have any questions, please contact Julie Wong at julie.wong@ucop.edu or (510) 987-0374.

Sincerely,

David Phillips,

Associate Vice President, Capital Programs, Energy and Sustainability

Enclosures:

1) Draft Presidential Policy: Relocation Assistance Act Policy for Real Estate Acquisitions and Leases (clean copy)

2) Draft Presidential Policy: Relocation Assistance Act Policy for Real Estate Acquisitions and Leases (tracked-changes copy)

3) Model Communication

cc: President Milliken

Interim Provost and Executive Vice President Hexter

Executive Vice Chancellors/Provosts

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Nava

Executive Vice President Rubin

Senior Vice President Bustamante

Vice President Brown

Vice President and Vice Provost Gullatt

Vice President Henderson

Vice President and Chief of Staff Kao

Vice President Maldonado

Academic Council Vice Chair Nuru-Jeter

Vice Provost Varsanyi

Vice Provosts/Vice Chancellors of Academic Affairs/Personnel

Deputy Provost Lee

Associate Vice President Matella

Associate Vice President McRae

Deputy General Counsel Woodall

Assistant Vice Provosts/Assistant Vice Chancellors for Academic Personnel

Executive Director Anders 

Executive Director Lin

Executive Director Menezes

Chief of Staff Beechem

Chief of Staff Levintov

Chief Policy Advisor McAuliffe

LBL Chief Human Resources Officer Crosson

Interim Chief Human Resources Officer Hairston

Director Chin

Director Garcia

Director Lavin

Director Weston-Dawkes

Associate Director Dicaprio

Associate Director Soria

Associate Director Woolston

Assistant Director LaBriola

Policy Analyst Durrin

Program Policy Analyst D’Agostino

Policy Advisory Committee

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Source: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/systemwide-senate-review-relocation-assistance-act-policy.pdf.

Don't call. Don't click. Delete.

Don't call. Don't click. Delete.  

Straws in the Wind - Part 471

From the Cornell Daily Sun: The Accepting Responsibility program, a restorative alternative to Academic Integrity hearings for first-time offenders, was entered into the revised Code of Academic Integrity in August. It was previously a pilot program used in individual courses, but not adopted as official University policy. The program was incorporated into the Code of Academic Integrity on Aug. 24 after the Faculty Senate voted to expand the program from its pilot stage at its May 4 meeting...

The AR program is voluntary for both the faculty and students involved, and it allows faculty members aware of an academic integrity violation to opt between a formal hearing and investigation or the AR program... If a faculty member decides to offer the AR program to a student, the student receives a violation notification outlining the issue, evidence of the violation and a proposed grade penalty, according to the revised Code of Academic Integrity. The student then has three business days to decide whether to accept responsibility or request an Academic Integrity hearing. If the student accepts responsibility, they admit the violation, accept the penalty and agree to complete an AR workshop within two weeks...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/09/m4e6oo4sdu5k.

They asked but got NIL - Part 2

From CalMatters: CalMatters is suing the second UC campus — UC Berkeley — in as many months to force the institution to release financial data on how much its student athletes earn from name, image and likeness deals. The suit, filed last week in the Alameda County Superior Court, is nearly identical to the one the nonprofit news outlet filed against UCLA in August. In both cases, the campuses refused to divulge how much they pay athletes after a national legal settlement last year that permits U.S. colleges to compensate their athletes directly. “We are reviewing the complaint and are going to decline comment at this time,” wrote Janet Gilmore, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley...

...Campuses can direct up to $20.5 million to student-athletes. At UC Berkeley, that pool of money is made up of athletics revenues, philanthropic funds, and “some campus funds,” the school’s chancellor, Richard Lyons, wrote last year... 

CalMatters spent almost a year seeking the data from UC Berkeley. It filed numerous California Public Records Acts requests to public universities across the state. Several campuses offered paltry data in response. Others, however, produced at least partial records, indicating that the payment records and contracts the newsroom seeks are public records, the lawsuit said. For example, UC Riverside reported that it provided its male athletes about $200,000, including multiple payments to the men’s basketball team, plus $70,000 for its female athletes. 

A Congressional Research Service paper noted that the new name, image and likeness payment era raises questions about federally mandated sex-based fairness in university sports... UCLA and UC Berkeley’s athletics programs were in the red in 2024-25, despite using their endowment or general fund dollars to subsidize their budgets...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/09/nil-california/. 

Round 1 Loss for UC

From the LA Times: In a conservative win, campus members of an education advocacy organization may refer to transgender people using names and pronouns that are not consistent with that individual’s gender identity, according to a federal court ruling that restricts University of California anti-harassment policies. The ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Fred W. Slaughter of California’s Central District does not fully invalidate UC’s wide-ranging anti-harassment policy, which covers misgendering, sexual abuse and stalking among campus community members...

The preliminary injunction — a temporary ruling while the case against UC proceeds — only protects members of the conservative group Defending Education. The group offers membership to anyone for free. It is unclear how many members the group has on UC campuses. Slaughter said he found Defending Education likely to succeed on its 1st Amendment challenge, writing that the UC policy “compels speech and is viewpoint-based.” ...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-09-19/uc-transgender-harassment-policy-free-speech-lawsuit.

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Lawsuit available at:

https://defendinged.org/lawsuits/defending-education-files-suit-against-the-university-of-california-for-unconstitutional-speech-policies/.

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If the judge is saying the plaintiffs are likely to succeed, maybe it's time to settle?