The Regents' Big Ten Decision: Not a Good Look

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Yesterday, we posted about the Regents' decision not to try and veto the move of UCLA from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten shortly after the decision was taken.* If you didn't read that post, you should because what happens goes beyond where UCLA will play football and other sports. It was an exercise in micro-management.** And it was as close as the Regents come to a vote of no confidence in a chancellor. Indeed, if you micro-manage a campus-level decision, you are implicitly saying you don't have confidence in the leadership of that campus to carry out its responsibilities. The two concepts - micromanagement and lack of confidence - are intertwined.

In essence, the decision was to let UCLA go forward with its move, to tax its resulting revenue and transfer it to UC-Berkeley, and then to condition the decision on an array of detailed conditions. As we have posted, there was only a small chance that the Regents would try to override the decision. Chancellor Block was their authorized agent acting within official policy when he made the deal with the Big Ten. While the Regents technically could have overridden him, the result would have been costly litigation. If you break a legitimate contract and the issue goes to court, you lose. Surely, the UC general counsel pointed this sobering fact out to the Regents in their various closed sessions on this matter. In addition, overtly overriding campus chancellors is not something the Regents like to do.

Note that the Regents in this particular case could have endorsed the Big Ten deal, suggested that the chancellors of UCLA and Berkeley get together and work out some arrangement for revenue sharing, and scheduled some future session on guidelines about what should be the protocol when a campus chancellor is faced with a decision that could have significant adverse revenue effects on another campus. Instead, they came up with a detailed eleven-point document. Here, as an example of detail, is point number 4:

UCLA will increase budgeted student-athlete nutritional support beyond levels established for the 2023-2024 fiscal year in an amount not less than $4.3 million; such support shall include guaranteed breakfast and lunch availability on campus for all UCLA student-athletes, professional dietician services, and funds not less than $250,000 set aside for additional nutritious meals while traveling.

It's true the Regents did not specify the breakfast menu, perhaps oatmeal or cold cereal, but that seems only because they specified hiring a dietician to plan the menu.

Times:***

“We’re OK. We’re comfortable,” said Block, the longtime chancellor who said he was “sad” to be leaving the Pac-12. “It’s up to the board to decide what the number is. From the very beginning, we said we understand we may have to help Berkeley with this.”

Actually, you won't find anyone saying that revenue would be funneled to Berkeley until controversy arose. And what else could Block say. Would he be expected to say in public that he was uncomfortable?

How about Berkeley Chancellor Christ?

Cal-Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, who had hoped the Regents would block U.C.L.A.’s move, brushed past a reporter as she left the meeting immediately after it ended. “I’ve got nothing to say,” she said.

No one bothered to ask the chancellors of the other campuses if they were concerned after this decision about being micro-managed on some future issue.

What about the Regents who voted for the eleven-point decision 11 to 5? Regent Chair Leib said this:

“In the end, we’re a system, not an individual campus,” Richard Leib, the board chairman, said after the proposal passed by an 11-5 vote following a 90-minute closed session. “We’ve never had a situation where a decision by one campus had this kind of impact on another campus within our system.”

Actually, it was pointed out in the public segment of the meeting that the campuses compete with one another in various ways including for Big Buck research grants.

Why did five Regents vote against the deal?

Lark Park, one of the five regents who voted against the approval, said “it wasn’t there for me,” but declined to elaborate. Leib believed that those who opposed the deal did so for philosophical reasons. “Some people felt it would be better to put the genie back in the bottle and try to get U.C.L.A. back to the Pac-12 is my guess,” he said.

The statement above suggests that even behind closed doors, the dissenting Regents never articulated reasons for their position.

Note finally that an 11 to 5 vote means that only 16 Regents participated out of 24. In particular, Governor Newsom, an ex officio Regent, never showed up, although he was the one who insisted that the Regents involve themselves in this matter originally.

The whole affair was, as they say, not a good look.

* http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-big-ten-decision-at-regents.html. (Includes video links.)

**Contrary to the cartoon above, yours truly likes the hyphen in "micro-management."

* * * T h e q u o t e s b e l o w c o m e f r o m https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/sports/ncaafootball/ucla-big-ten.html.

To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/not%20good.mp3

Strike News: Additional Developments - Part 8 (Arrests at Regents)

Thursday, December 15, 2022

If you have followed our coverage of the recent Regents meeting at UCLA, you will know that there were protests there which essentially cancelled the planned meeting of the Health Services Committee except for public comments.

More detail from EdSource:

Across several episodes in recent weeks, dozens of striking academic workers have ramped up their activism, putting themselves in positions that they know lead to handcuffs and arrest. ...14 academic workers were arrested after two acts of protests forced the regents to temporarily halt their planned meeting for several hours. The first wave of arrests occurred just before noon, after all but four of the roughly two dozen protesters who snuck into the well-guarded conference space filed out of the building and disrupted a closed meeting of the regents. The remaining four refused police orders to disperse.

The second set of arrests unfolded during the public comment period in the afternoon. After a graduate worker pleaded with the regents to use their influence to offer the striking workers a better contract, 10 other graduate student workers crossed into the reserved area where regents sit during meetings and sat on the floor, shouting “if we don’t get it, shut it down.” ...

For roughly half an hour they chanted, clapped and sang to a nearly empty chamber as almost all the regents peeled off into a private room just moments after the unrest began. UC police eventually ordered the student workers to disperse. None did and all 10 were handcuffed as they sang “solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong” — the last two to be arrested carrying the solemn tune by themselves...

Last week, scores of striking workers rallied outside the Los Angeles home of Sures, who is also vice chairman of United Talent Agency — among the largest entertainment talent agencies in the country. Also in Los Angeles, another group of several dozen graduate student workers flooded the hallway and office of The David Geffen Company, directed by another UC regent, Richard Sherman, last Wednesday. As a result, 10 graduate workers were arrested, cited and given a court date...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2022/12/uc-strike-civildisobedience/.

*Videos from Twitter of the protests can be seen at:

https://ia801401.us.archive.org/0/items/health-services-committee/Demonstrations.mp4.

To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/protest.mp3