CalState vs. Harvard

In the meantime, it appears that a middle-class student attending Harvard University will end up with a lower bill than one attending a California State School. Go figure.

Not Surprised

Somehow we are not surprised that the long-awaited report of the Reynoso task force has yet again been delayed. This time because of a temporary restraining order being filed this morning by the police union in Alameda County Superior Court.

Could it be that the police officers involved in the pepper spraying have something that they'd rather not be made public? Don't they know that attempts to prevent the release of information are bound to make you look guilty?

There are several other investigations of the Nov. 18 pepper spraying that are still ongoing, including an internal investigation by UC PD internal affairs, which could possibly result in disciplinary actions against the officers involved (the by now infamous Lt. Pike, Chief Spicuzza, and another yet unnamed officer).

At long last

From the UC Davis Academic Senate:

The release of the Reynoso Task Force Report on the Pepper Spray Incident is scheduled for March 6. Former California Supreme Court Associate Justice Cruz Reynoso, chair of the task force, announced today that the group will outline its findings and recommendations to the UC Davis community on Tuesday, March 6 [...].  The task force findings, recommendations and background documents will be made available on the UC Davis home page at noon on Tuesday, March 6. A live webcast of the public meeting will also be accessible from the campus home page.

Their day in court

Nineteen former and current UC Davis students who were pepper-sprayed on Nov. 18 filed suit in US District Court against UC Davis officials. The University officials named as defendant in the suit are 

LINDA KATEHI, Chancellor of the University of California at Davis; RALPH J. HEXTER, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor of the University of California at Davis; FRED WOOD, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University ofCalifornia at Davis; JOHN MEYER, Vice Chancellor of Administration and Resource Management at the University at California at Davis; ANNETTE SPICUZZA, Chief of the University of California at Davis Police Department; JOHN PIKE, Lt. in the University of California at Davis Police Department; and DOES 1 – 50, officers of the University of California at Davis Police Department.

The plaintiffs seek 

a declaration from the Court that campus policies and practices that led to the abuse of the plaintiffs and others offend both the state and federal constitutional guarantees of the rights to free speech and assembly and that the pepper-spraying and arrests of plaintiffs violated their state and federal constitutional rights; an injunction to prevent repetition of such a response to a non-violent protest; and compensatory and punitive damages against the individual perpetrators of the illegal acts and their  superiors who ordered, directed and/or condoned this outrageous conduct.

As to the question of whether Chancellor Katehi and her co-defendants had any direct responsibility for the events of Nov 18 (a notion that a majority of UC Davis apparently reject, as witnessed by the confidence and no-confidence motions), the suit points out:

Defendants KATEHI, HEXTER, WOOD, MEYER and SPICUZZA had an affirmative duty to properly screen, train and supervise defendants PIKE and DOE Defendants 1 through 50, but failed to do so, resulting in the actions and violations of the rights of Plaintiffs and others described herein.

 The suit alleges violations of the plaintiffs' rights as laid out in the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution (freedom of speech; illegal search and seizure; due process; respectively), as well as several articles of the California Constitution.

The plaintiffs demand a trial by jury.

Vote of Confidence

As expected, UC Davis faculty have defeated a no-confidence motion questioning Chancellor Katehi's leadership, and they have done so by a large margin (70% of the votes cast). Nothing new, especially faculty in the applied sciences have been supporting the Chancellor for a long time, and she has been particularly good to them, pushing forward with the plan to collect increased funding in grants support and private donations (not to mention student tuition, especially from international and out of state students – although nothing on the scale pursued by Berkeley and UCLA).

What is surprising is that the third motion – which condemned police responses to the November 18 protest – carried by a large but not nearly unanimous margin. The motion

1.  condemns both the dispatch of police and use of excessive force in response to non-violent protests on November 18, 2011;
2. opposes violent police response to non-violent protests on campus;
3. demands that police deployment against protestors be considered only after all reasonable efforts have been exhausted and with direct consultation with Academic Senate leadership. 

These are all pretty straightforward points, which in very similar form have all been endorsed by the Chancellor herself and her supporters. And yet 343 senate faculty decided to register their opposition by voting against the motion. One has to wonder, what were they thinking?

Social Security Deduction

It would seem that the University was not prepared for the extension of the Social Security tax cut just approved by Congress. As a result, January paychecks will reflect the old, higher payroll tax rate of 6.2% instead of the 4.2% that's been in place throughout 2011. The extra amount withheld will appear instead on the next paycheck, on Feb 1 for most employees.

So our Jan 1 paychecks will be 2% lower than our Dec 1 paychecks. Happy 2012 to all!

Backroom Deals

This past Monday, after hearing the plight of students for never-ending tuition hikes and their outrage at the trampling of their constitutional rights at Berkeley, Davis and elsewhere, the Regents of the University of California promptly reconvened to a separate, smaller room for the non-public portion of their meeting, where they provided yet another resplendent  example of their vision, leadership, and courage in steering the UC ship in these stormy waters.

Once outside of public scrutiny, the Regents promptly proceeded to approve 9.9% pay raises for three vice-chancellors (UCLA, UCI, UCSF) as well as for a number of university lawyers. But the lottery winner was indisputably UC Davis general counsel Steven Drown who got a whopping 21.9% salary raise (only UCDMC chief operating officer got a bigger raise, but medical center employees' salaries benefit from the revenue the bring to the University). Mr Drown was noted during the recent "events" at UC Davis for his very visible absence while the students' first amendment rights were being covered in orange pepper spray.

In the meantime, it looks like a section of UC Davis faculty, mostly from the sciences and engineering, have launched Operation SCA ("Save the Chancellor's Ass"). One is reminded of not too distant proceedings at Irvine, when Chancellor Drake hired, fired, and re-hired Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinski, all in the same week. UCI science and medical faculty also rose en masse to save Drake's ass, quite possibly in return for Drake's saving their asses when the Medical School was selling body parts and fertilized human eggs on the black market.