Pressure on the University of California escalated Wednesday
when three state senators said UC President Robert Dynes should
leave office for failing to adequately manage the university.
But for now, there is little that senators can do to effect
change within the UC other than urge university officials to follow
their advice.
Sens. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, and
Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, all said they believed Dynes should
leave his position at the helm of the university because he has
participated in and allowed numerous violations and exceptions to
UC policy and the California constitution when making compensation
decisions.
Per the California constitution, the UC Board of Regents has the
freedom to appoint and dismiss executive officers, as well as
determine its own policies, without state interference.
“The legislature can push its intent and expectations …
(on) how (the UC’s) policies should be implemented, but
it’s the regents who make the actual decisions,” said
Murray Haberman, executive director for the California
Postsecondary Education Commission, which analyzes higher education
in the state.
But the legislature does have actions it can take to pressure
the UC into firing Dynes, the most extreme of which would be to
amend the California constitution to take away the regents’
autonomy
And this last move is one Denham said he would be willing to
take.
When asked what he could concretely do to compel the university
to fire its top executive, he said he “could pass a bill in
the legislature to take away the autonomy from the UC
system.”
“That’s the direction … UC executives are forcing
us to go because they are not being forthright with the information
on all of these exceptions,” he said.
Denham introduced a bill in January that would eliminate the
UC’s independence if the university did not change its
practices on executive compensation.
Romero and Maldonado have not supported legislation to take
autonomy away from the UC, and the push to remove Dynes has been
opposed by some prominent California politicians, namely Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Short of amending the constitution, educators and analysts said
senators can influence the UC’s actions through political and
economic persuasion.
Susanne Lohman, a political science professor, said the
university is susceptible to outside pressure and its autonomy is
not absolute.
“Over time, the autonomy of the university might be
undercut if senators overbear their influence on UC
decision-making,” Lohman said.
Haberman said another way the legislature could intervene in the
regents’ autonomy by manipulating and cutting the budget for
education.
“The legislature could tie budget decisions to
policy,” Haberman said, adding that the state has taken
similar action once in the past.
Following a similar compensation scandal in 1992, when the UC
failed to discuss compensation packages in open meetings, the state
cut funding for the UC Office of the President, hoping to influence
the regents’ view on the importance of accountability.
But Haberman added that budget cuts don’t benefit anybody
at the end of the day because it adversely affects students, since
there are fewer resources for instructing.
With reports from Sara Taylor, Bruin senior staff.