A California state senator proposed a state constitutional amendment Wednesday that would strip the University of California of its autonomy from the state.
The amendment from Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) would allow the state Legislature to give itself powers to control the UC more closely, such as the ability to veto any of the UC Board of Regents’ actions like tuition increases. In order for the amendment to be placed on the ballot for the 2016 election, it needs to get two-thirds majority approval in both legislative chambers.
The Legislature would be prevented from enacting any law that restrains academic freedom within the UC, according to the amendment. Furthermore, the University will be required to focus its recruitment efforts on the enrollment of California residents.
“At a time when access, affordability and diversity are in question, we should allow the public to have a direct say in how its public university system operates,” Lara said in a statement.
Lara’s proposal comes after the regents passed a controversial plan that may raise tuition by up to 5 percent for the next five years if the state does not allocate significantly more funding to the UC. The regents’ action brought outcry from both legislators and students. On Tuesday, the Undergraduate Students Association Council passed a resolution on Tuesday expressing vote of no confidence in UC President Janet Napolitano and the regents.
Regents argued that tuition increases may be necessary to upkeep the UC’s quality of education amid lower state funding levels.
On Tuesday, Sen. Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) proposed a plan to keep UC in-state tuition flat for the next year, while increasing the University’s nonresident supplemental tuition by 17 percent.
USAC External Vice President Conrad Contreras said he expects his office will advocate for the amendment, although he said he wants to meet with Lara first to discuss.
“We are seeing that people and entities outside the University are taking action to help students make the UC more democratic,” Contreras said.
UC spokesperson Steve Montiel said in an email statement that he thinks the proposal distracts from the debate over how to fund the UC.
“This proposal … is a distraction from the central issue of the state’s funding of higher education and the goals of affordability and access,” Montiel said in the statement. “Autonomy for the UC has been guaranteed in the Constitution since 1878, and that has worked out very well for people and communities in every part of the state.”
Montiel added that the UC already holds itself accountable in multiple ways and sends regular reports to the Legislature about its budget and the status of the University.
In 2009, then-Sen. Leland Yee proposed a similar amendment after the University gave chancellors a raise in their salaries. The amendment failed to pass through the Legislature.
Compiled by Jeong Park, Bruin senior staff.
Unfortunately, I worked at UC on the Administration side – in Facilities as a Senior Architect – and I know they don’t hold themselves accountable.
They told us repeatedly “We don’t have to obey any laws”. (In business dealings, applying the freedoms of academia to business).
Sweet, isn’t that. Especially with huge facilities departments (over 800) where I was told 4 years later by Contracts Managers who had lied to FBI Agents, “EVERYBODY!!!! was involved in the kickbacks!!!!!)
I found myself trapped in the job (had cancer 9 months into it as I was realizing what was going on with just illegally sole-sourced specs)….and tied to the very bosses that illegally sole-sourced construction products. After another staff architect got run out for verbally fighting them over it, she killed herself, calling me up the night beforehand sobbing and begging me to “do something – how does UC keep getting away with all those illegal contracts?” over and over and over again, just distraught. I promised her I would – but the next day…..neighbors heard a loud noise, came running, and she was dead.
In shock, about 5 months later I verbally pounded the head of the building managers why I couldn’t do competitive bid specs for all the different building types (UCSF) and he pulled me out of hidden camera range, asked me to ask again….and in response, he took his thumb back and forth across the tops of his fingers. I said, “you mean____??” and copied his motion, and he nodded and smiled big.
Payola.
When doctor friends came back from Christmas vacation, I told them and they told me to get into the FBI. It was killing their research dollars. KILLING them! (and you can bet if affects students, too and their tuition!!!)
I did. The FBI after investigating one huge roofing job on multiple hospital roofs “Strongly recommended prosecutions” of my bosses. Instead, I was fired….a witness went and told my bosses what I had done.
My case was read into the Los Alamos Congressional Hearings according to attorneys there, “as a prime example of the lack of accountability of UC”.
THAT’S RIGHT. They are NOT accountable and cannot account internally. Talk about a massive conflict of interest!!!!!!
UC also lied to the Congressmen, who asked if I would be taken care of. They took care of me alright – threats, being followed, hang on hang up calls every day through the case, death threats – and blackballed. And more. These guys are like the MOB – there is NO accountability.
One wonders what they paid my first attorney – a proud Berkeley grad – to lie to me about what I needed to do. They had a track record of paying off people in my case…..inserting documents into my boxes of evidence….these guys are filthy dirty.
I lost. But in another sense, I didn’t. My last attorney, a two-time UC grad, found herself working under a paralegal going to NIH contracts from UC San Diego, being ordered to do illegal stuff. She stood up to them and won a whistleblowers’ suit.
Had her two uncles, prominent labor leaders Jim and Joe Murphy, not been blown up in a plane coming out of Sitka, Alaska as my case was moving forward, she would have been able to save my case with an Amicus Brief to put in a certain phrase.
But what she did do was write a stunning appeal calling out the UC mobsters she and I had encountered in the most colorful word pictures….and then put in two briefs before the US Supreme Court that detailed what she had discovered that got her uncles killed.
She had discovered the illegal operation of UC – alluded to in a book by one of UC’s recent past Presidents. Her analysis was far more researched and spot on.
She told her uncles in August 2004, one of them went to the State Attorney General’s Offices (Bill Lockyer) on Sept. 10 and told them. On Sept. 20, 2004, both of the uncles were on a plane owned by a lawyer friend of the SAG in San Francisco, on the second of three flights out of Sitka, Alaska….and after rounding a cove, residents heard a loud explosion and the plane was gone. After much searching and with men in black coats standing on the shore, watching, that no one knew, the Coast Guard and my attorney’s brother and his friends, all Navy Seals, were called off the search.
And for those who say it can’t be true? Don’t even go there.
My father had an IQ of 167 and could listen to a jet engine and tell you what was wrong with it. In the last part of his career, he “coasted” – working for the FAA in the Southeast Region…..and listened to black boxes, brought in on crashes. He knew a number of those killed, had flown with some of them.
In my last few months at Georgia Tech in the late 1970’s, he called me very late one night, sobbing, and yelling, “If you ever hear of a plane exploding, it’s NEVER an accident, NEVER! You remember that, OK???”
I knew I was going to need to know that someday – and I did.
That’s how accountable UC is. They kill off, maim (look up the whistleblower in New Mexico at a UC facility) and hurt in every way possible anyone that stands up to the illegal acts.
Totally without a conscience.
AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ACADEMIA – ONLY GREED FROM ADMINISTRATORS.
They are completely, WILDLY, OUT OF CONTROL.
So what was that illegal operation my attorney discovered?
UC’s Administrators pulled out from under the rule of the Academic Senate in the late 60’s and 70’s, and took the freedoms of academia INTO THEIR BUSINESS OPERATIONS.
Now just how many of their buddies got rich off that??? And still do????
The Organic Act of 1854 – UC’s Land Grant Charter – SPECIFICALLY had the Administrators under the rule of the Academic Senate, the freedoms of Academia applying to Academics, NOT business, operations.
The California Legislature, not understanding what happened and recognizing that sole-sourcing of contracts was hurting the University, made a California Constitutional Amendment in the late 70’s specifically requiring competitive bidding in construction contracts.
Which is precisely what I caught them doing, trying to force me to do it while they collected thousands in kickbacks personally…….and because I did the right thing, got fired for it.
There are no good internal reviews of any kind. NEVER trust any agency to investigate themselves – NEVER.
And certainly not UC.
If you look at their Administration, the University of California is a parking place for all kinds of friends of friends…in “executive” positions….at OUTRAGEOUS salaries and benefits…….and it’s not uncommon to see the untrained and unskilled in positions of power, telling the licensed, trained staff members what to do – stuff they would never do in private work or other public entities.
In our department, the Asst. Vice Chancellor was charged with fraud in the Lincoln Savings Bank & Loan Scandal – and somehow beat it. ONe of the Contracts Managers was the daughter-in-law of the San Francisco Police Chief – and lied to FBI Agents, surrounded by SF Cops…..the FBI was extremely upset with them, calling her “She’s dirty, sh’es dirty!” when she had acted anything but.
You have to understand: UC has to go back to their original Charter, or just shut it down.
And the Administration needs cleaned out top to bottom, with Auditors not from companies but a division of the State Auditors’ Offices.
And the Justice Dept. needs to go after them – in every way – not like last time where Robert Muller, head of the San Francisco Office, shut down prosecutions of my bosses. Later, while head of the FBI, many FBI agents would tell others trying to stop the same international scam I caught onto working at UCSF “We aren’t allowed to go after school boards, etc.”
Got it? The wrong people are in charge, everywhere.
And the Land Grant Charter and operation of UC has been completely ignored for 40 years, with costs running out of sight as a result.
If you want to get a copy of the .pdf’s of those three pleadings that lay it all out, reply here or find me through the main blog I have up, http://www.schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com or http://www.thebackstoryschoolroofingscam.blogspot.com. Trust me, it’s not just about roofing or construction products, and the way it is done is incredibly insidious….lawyers and accountants and investigators call all the time for information.
Good luck with whipping the University of California back into their prescribed operation – and cleaning out the graft and corruption and hogs at the trough.