The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3299 accused the university of intimidating patient-care employees by threatening them with disciplinary action during strikes over pension reform in May. On Sept. 12, the Public Employment Relations Board, a state agency that oversees collective bargaining pertaining to employees of California public schools, issued a complaint against the UC system on behalf of the union and began an investigation into the claims.

The university denies allegations that it created a coercive environment, as outlined in the complaint.

AFSCME’s vote to strike is not a response to failed negotiations or the UC system’s recent implementation of a revised pension plan but is a move to protest the treatment of UC employees, according to AFSCME communications director Todd Stenhouse.

“They (UC employees) have the right to be in a workplace free of intimidation and coercion,” Stenhouse said. “Our workers are very united right now — there is a lot of justified disgust about the way many of their colleagues have been treated.”

Should union members vote in favor of striking, AFSCME will proceed with coordinating a strike, Stenhouse said.

According the the PERB website, the board will issue a complaint regarding accusations of unfair practices if the agent reviewing the allegations “concludes that there are enough facts alleged that an unfair practice may have been committed.”

Both parties would then proceed to attend an informal conference, in which the agent would work with them to try to reach a mutually agreeable settlement. Should this fail, PERB would schedule a formal hearing, at which both parties would present their cases to an administrative law judge.

In a written response to the complaint, the university’s legal counsel calls AFSCME’s allegations “preposterous.”

The UC system said these accusations are part of the union’s efforts to blame the university for the low employee attendance during strikes in May, according to UC spokesperson Dianne Klein.

“They have a legal right to strike, and we wouldn’t interfere,” Klein said. “But no one wants to strike.”

On May 21, 97 percent of union members voted in favor of a strike. About 75 percent of employees, however, continued to work, according to Klein. She said a strike would be detrimental to university operations.

UC President Janet Napolitano plans to meet with AFSCME representatives but not as part of the collective bargaining process, Klein said.

“We are all university employees, and we need to work together,” Klein said. “We urge the union leadership to return to the bargaining table so we may negotiate a fair contract.”

Contact Jessie Lau at jlau@dailycal.org.

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The TRUST Act, or the Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools Act, will prevent local law enforcement agencies from detaining undocumented individuals on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than 48 hours if they are eligible for release or have not committed a serious felony.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced the bill as a response to the Secure Communities federal program, which allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to screen detainees based on their immigration status by running their fingerprints through a federal database.

“While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead,” Brown said in a press release. “I’m not waiting.”

Last fall, Brown vetoed an earlier iteration of the law, requesting that certain types of serious crimes that were not part of that version, such as child abuse, be included in the list of serious felonies.

The law Brown signed had been amended to include the changes and is designed to  help rebuild trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement. According to the law, undocumented residents are less likely to cooperate with police when it “could result in deportation.”

Secure Communities has led to the deportation of more than 90,000 California residents — more than in any other state, according to data from the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

Last Tuesday, UC President Janet Napolitano, previously Secretary of Homeland Security, met with students who were part of the Statewide Multicultural Student Coalition, a universitywide group of undocumented students and their supporters that formed in response to her appointment.

At the meeting, Napolitano informed the students that she had discussed the TRUST Act with Brown, telling him she thought it would be “good for the state of California,” said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron.

Leti Volpp, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, said California should encourage legislation that recognizes immigrants as part of the community rather than removing them from it.

However, Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., raised concerns about public safety issues and how law enforcement officials would be able to arbitrarily determine which individuals will be subject to immigration enforcement.

“(The law would) force them to release people who should be left in custody,” Vaughan said.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, undocumented individuals accounted for 6.8 percent of California’s population and 9.7 percent of the state’s labor force in 2010.

There are about 200 undocumented students on campus as of 2012, according to Meng So, the campus’s first undocumented student program coordinator.

Volpp said she hopes the TRUST Act will “remove daily insecurities” for undocumented students in California.

Contact Jeff Landa at jlanda@dailycal.org.

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Ariel D. Hayat/Staff

UC President Janet Napolitano met twice with some of her staunchest critics Tuesday in an effort to address universitywide student concerns about her appointment and to build trust and cooperation.

The meetings, held at the UC Office of the President in Oakland, were preempted by 17 UC Berkeley students protesting Napolitano’s appointment on the basis of her record on deportation of undocumented immigrants during her stint as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. Inside the building, Napolitano met with Student Regent Cinthia Flores, Student Regent-designate Sadia Saifuddin and 10 other UC students.

The students Napolitano met with were part of the Statewide Multicultural Student Coalition, a universitywide group of undocumented students and their supporters that formed in response to Napolitano’s appointment. The meeting was intended to address their list of demands and create an atmosphere of respect.

The demands called for reform of the university’s policies regarding undocumented immigrants, including limiting the use of university resources to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement and allowing undocumented students to work on campus.

The coalition also requested that Napolitano prohibit the use of riot police during protests. Andrea Gordillo, a UC Irvine senior and a representative of the coalition, said this request also affected the protesters demonstrating outside the meeting because both groups have similar concerns, such as a lack of diversity among UC faculty members and students.

“I know I speak for 11 million undocumented immigrants,” said protester David Douglass, a fourth-year UC Berkeley student who ran for ASUC president last year as a member of the Defend Affirmative Action Party. “We want to move forward with presenting the demands of the student movement and move forward to demand full citizenship rights.”

In response to the students’ grievances, Napolitano said in a press release that she will assign staff to explore the various issues discussed in the meeting and that she intends to take steps to expand access to financial aid, ensure sound campus police practices and help first-generation students and those of color succeed at UC schools.

Flores and Saifuddin met separately with Napolitano earlier in the day to discuss specific policy issues, such as increasing federal financial aid to students and Napolitano’s support for a program Flores initiated that would help California high school seniors apply to UC schools and aid them throughout their time at the university.

UC spokesperson Dianne Klein added that the UC administration will continue “robust financial aid policies” and expand them, noting the recently launched Promise for Education fundraising campaign as a means to that end.

“The fact that President Napolitano chose to meet with these students on her second day on the job demonstrates the importance she places on dialogue and cooperation,” Klein said. “Students spoke of their experiences and concerns, and the president listened. She did not automatically rule out any of their demands — she will consider them all.”

Both Gordillo and Flores said they are “cautiously optimistic” about the results of the most recent meeting.

“We didn’t get any concrete answers or tangible solutions, but we got a promise that she will look thoroughly into the proposals,” Gordillo said, adding that the coalition was promised a follow-up meeting in a couple of months.

Napolitano said in the press release that she will continue to work closely with the UC Board of Regents as she visits various campuses in the initial months of her presidency.

Contact Michelaina Johnson and Shannon Carroll at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Carli Baker/Senior Staff

For the first time in five years, Mark Yudof will wake up Monday a free man. No longer will the outgoing UC president have to deal with angry accusations of screwing over students or unfairly bargaining with unions or ignoring the cries of protesters.

No longer will he be responsible for overseeing a $24.1 billion budget or managing a massive bureaucracy that supports more than 220,000 students and 170,000 faculty and staff.

After presiding over the UC system during five of the most tumultuous years of its history, Yudof stepped down Sunday to make way for former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. His departure signals the end of what may be the most significant chapter in Yudof’s decades-long career as an educator and administrator.

From blue collar to top-floor office

The president’s office is on the 12th floor of the UC headquarters building, an unassuming tower in the middle of Downtown Oakland where system administrators oversee programs that affect the broader UC system.

Yudof’s office is spacious and simple. Maps and certificates hang on the wall behind the desk, a traditional wooden worktable with a few colonial touches, including an hourglass, a quill feather and an inkwell.

But before the big desk and the colonial touches, Yudof was entirely blue collar.

The son of an electrician, Yudof completed his undergraduate education in just three years at the University of Pennsylvania and worked part time to pay for school, something he said has helped him better relate to the average worker.

Many of his detractors, however, may not be aware of his humble past. During an hourlong interview with The Daily Californian, Yudof recalled meeting with a group of union representatives who accused him of not understanding the struggles of working a physically demanding job.

“I looked at them and I said, ‘You know, I think I do understand, because when I went to undergraduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, I pushed gurneys for three years,’” Yudof said. “Otherwise, I would not have been able to afford to be there.”

After graduating, Yudof practiced constitutional law for much of the late 1960s and 1970s. He worked with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and represented professors who he thought unfairly had their First Amendment rights curbed.

In 1971, he began teaching law at the University of Texas at Austin, where he spent the next 26 years in teaching and administrative positions. For the last 16 years, Yudof has led the universities of Minnesota, Texas and California.

Students “immediately assume if you’re in my job you must be someone who comes from a rich, hoity-toity-type family,” Yudof said. “Not true. I wish they’d know that.”

Tenure in office

In June 2008 Yudof stepped into an office that had been fraught with problems. His predecessor, Robert Dynes, announced his resignation in 2007, two years after it came to light that millions had been spent on extra pay and perks for administrators. Then, shortly after entering the position, Yudof was handed the first in a series of massive state budget cuts to the UC system.

“I knew we were in an economic downturn — I understood that,” Yudof said. “But I’m not a great prognosticator. We lost a billion dollars, and all of a sudden we’re bleeding.”

As budgets were slashed, tuition for Californians rose from a little more than $7,000 in 2008 to more than $12,000 today, and students throughout the UC system protested en masse.

Yudof said he harbors no ill will toward the protesters. However, impeding a public body such as the UC Board of Regents from meeting represents a lack of civility, he said.

“The real narrative is, you have the greatest public university in the world reacting to a billion-dollar reduction in their appropriation,” Yudof said. “And that we’re not building rock-climbing walls, and we’re not paying the top salaries to chancellors.”

Still, deconstructing what Yudof calls the “grand narrative” — the idea that the UC system is prohibitively expensive for poor students and that the administrative Office of the President is overrun with unnecessary bureaucracy — has been a challenge.

Yudof’s colleagues praised the job he did as president. Bruce Varner, chair of the UC Board of Regents, said Yudof helped increase efficiency and build an appropriate relationship with the board.

“In one word, he stabilized things,” Varner said. “At the end of the day, he’s a very caring leader and always cared about the students and their welfare.”

Even as tuition has soared, financial aid programs have expanded. In 2009 Yudof oversaw the implementation of the Blue and Gold opportunity plan for lower-income undergraduate students. At the time, the plan ensured that most undergraduates eligible for financial aid whose families earn less than $60,000 annually paid nothing in tuition. Today, the cap has expanded to include families whose income is below $80,000.

Former UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who stepped down in June, said that the campus tried to minimize student debt and maximize accessibility and that Yudof’s efforts helped with that process.

“I think students who don’t necessarily fully appreciate this were very well served by him during his time,” Birgeneau said.

Challenges and criticism

Still, UC Student Regent Cinthia Flores said she would have appreciated a more thorough investigation into how to save money and raise revenue before the regents raised tuition. Additionally, Flores said, she wished there had been a better avenue for students to share their input on closing the budget shortfall.

The budget wasn’t Yudof’s only challenge. The UC Student Health Insurance Plan, the university’s attempt to have a systemwide health plan for all 10 UC campuses, experienced massive changes after it was discovered that the program was carrying a deficit of more than $50 million. Yudof said he hopes students will not have to pay for what he says are past actuarial errors.

Retaining top faculty has been difficult as well. According to Yudof’s State of the UC report from May, faculty salaries lag an average of 11 percent behind comparator institutions. Earlier this year, USC lured away two prominent neuroscientists — and their research funding — from cross-town rival UCLA, for example.

Attempts at tackling other challenges have seen mixed results. Yudof said the financing model for higher education is broken, and one of his efforts to fix the flawed model, online courses, has failed to catch on as he had hoped. “An Introduction to Information,” for example, one of a handful of online courses offered at UC Berkeley last fall, saw its enrollment drop nearly 25 percent over the course of the semester.

Yudof said he thought faculty and student opposition prevented online classes from catching on faster.

Labor relations, too, have been a challenge. Although eight unions have agreed to pension reforms, a union representing health care and service workers, AFSCME 3299, has yet to reach a deal on a new contract with the UC system. The university announced Tuesday that after months of negotiations, it will implement its latest proposal without agreement from the union.

“It’s an assault on collective bargaining,” said Kathryn Lybarger, president of AFSCME 3299. “It’s an attack on the workers that make the university run. I don’t think we’ve been in a worse place than we are today.”

The legacy

Even with these challenges, Yudof says he hopes over time that his problematic “grand narrative” will clear.

“What I was trying to do was provide virtually a free education for as many students as possible,” Yudof said, “but those who could afford to pay, to charge them more. And all that got lost in the grand narrative.”

Mitchell Handler covers higher education. Contact him at mhandler@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @mitchellhandler.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that UC tuition is more than $15,000 for the current academic year and was more than $8,900 in 2008. In fact, base-level UC tuition for resident undergraduates is $12,192 for the current academic year and was $7,126 for the 2008-2009 year, not including campus-specific fees and the cost of the university-run health insurance plan.

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The move comes after a string of failures in the negotiation process between the university and the workers’ labor union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3299. The university and union entered negotiations in October. The union’s service workers — which include custodians, food-service workers and gardeners employed by the university — have worked without a contract since February. Having exhausted the option of bargaining, the university is legally allowed to move forward with this plan, according to a UC press release.

Service workers from AFSCME 3299 will now be subject to a two-tiered pension plan. Employees previously contributed 5 percent of their pay toward their pension, but those hired prior to July 1 must now contribute 6.5 percent. Those hired on or after July 1 must give 7 percent. The university will also contribute 12 percent of employee pay to workers’ pensions — an increase of 2 percent.

“Really, we prefer to solve these things at the table with our unions,” said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron. ”(Increasing employee contributions) is something that we have to do to make sure that our pension program is healthy in the long term. We couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. We had to make some changes.”

But AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger, who works as a gardener at UC Berkeley, said the university’s offer exacerbates everyday challenges and essentially equates to a pay cut for her and other workers.

“What this imposition does is it cuts at least $50 to $70 from low-wage workers’ paychecks every single month,” Lybarger said. “That equals a tank of gas to get to work, cost of parking at work, putting money away for our kids’ Christmas presents, and it’s the cost of a prescription.”

In July, the university imposed these pension reforms on more than 12,000 patient-care employees, who were also members of AFSCME 3299. Lybarger said the union has asked to meet with incoming UC President Janet Napolitano but did not say whether the union planned to strike.

Paul Roose, a state-appointed mediator brought in during the collective bargaining process, supported the two-tiered pension plan in a report issued in August. He called the bargaining process between the parties “dysfunctional.”

ASUC Senator Briana Mullen said the university’s decision threatens students’ rights to negotiate with the university and said she plans to write an ASUC bill asking the university reconsider its options.

“It’s really atrocious to think that the university can move forward without compromising,” Mullen said. “Students themselves have a stake in this game. They are affected by the way UC is sidestepping organized labor on campus.”

Contact Libby Rainey and Jessie Lau at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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It’s time to test your trivia knowledge (and school pride) again! You might have already tried guessing which celebrity went to Cal, but did you know a whole slew of prominent political figures were students here too? Try figuring out which of the two people listed together used to be Golden Bears. We’ll give you the answers, so don’t cheat with Google …

Round 1: Francisco I. Madero or Zulfikar Ali Bhutto?

Answer: Both!

Sorry for tripping you up so early, but did you know that two different presidents once walked across Sproul Plaza? Madero — the first revolutionary president of Mexico — went here for a year to learn agriculture and brush up on his English. Bhutto, the former president and prime minister of Pakistan, got his bachelor’s degree in political science — with honors!

Round 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jerry Brown?

Answer: Jerry Brown.

Cali’s current governor got a bachelor’s degree in classics at UC Berkeley in 1961 before going to law school and eventually launching a political career. Now if only the Terminator had gone here too…

Round 3: Barbara Lee or Janet Napolitano?

Answer: Barbara Lee

Our future UC president is new to the school, but Rep. Barbara Lee got a masters in social work from UC Berkeley in 1975.

Round 4:  Haakon Magnus or Frederik Christian?

Answer: Haakon Magnus

Otherwise known as Crown Prince Haakon, the Norwegian heir apparent beats out Danish Crown Prince Frederik in this competition. Prince Haakon got his bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Berkeley in 1999.

Know any other political hotshots who call themselves Cal alumni? Let us know by commenting!

Image sources: hsbfrank ,ABQ MUSEUM PHOTOARCHIVES, Dr Ghulam Nabi Kazi, Eva Rinaldi Celebrity and Live Music Photographer, Officer Phil, Youth Radio, Center for American Progress, United Nations Development Programme and VisitCopenhagen under Creative Commons.

Contact Erum Khan at ekhan@dailycal.org.

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A labor union representing UC student workers held a rally timed to coincide with the expiration of their contract with the University of California on Tuesday on Sproul Plaza to raise awareness of the issues being discussed during negotiations for a new contract.

UAW Local 2865 wants to keep protections for student workers that are already in place and win further concessions from the university. The rally largely focused on graduate student instructors. Supporters hoped to preserve current contract provisions, such as working-hour limits and fee remissions, and gain additional benefits such as increased child care subsidies and assistance with paying for campus parking.

Robbie Nelson, a graduate student in the department of history and a member of the union, said the union hopes to inform the community about important issues affecting student workers, such as smaller class sizes, more personalized instruction, student input in the university’s development of online education and discrimination against transgender and undocumented students.

Elizabeth Zumpe, a graduate student at the School of Education and a union member, emphasized those concerns.

“The increases in class sizes is a big concern for GSIs, especially since the budget cuts during the financial crisis,” she said. “Class sizes went up and do not seem to have gone back down again since then.”

Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who attended the rally in solidarity with the union, said it took a tremendous amount of effort for the union to gain the university’s recognition.

“I am hoping that with a new president, the UC might change the tone of negotiations and try to negotiate in a more reasonable way,” he said. “I think that it is great that the students have fought so hard to get their union recognized, and now they are fighting hard to get a new contract.”

Although union members expressed concern over large classes sizes during the rally, Dianne Klein, a spokesperson for the UC Office of the President, said the university’s negotiators do not have the capacity to control class sizes. Klein also said UCOP is eager to work through the issues the union presented and is hopeful they will reach a consensus.

The Coalition for Public Education, a recently formed unofficial student organization, used the rally as a platform to blast incoming UC president Janet Napolitano’s record on immigration enforcement as Homeland Security chief and question how her policies might impact minority students, who they claim are underrepresented in GSI positions.

The group’s contribution to the rally involved traditional Aztec dance, complete with an incense burner and vibrant feather headdresses meant to pay homage to Latinos, who make up a large majority of the undocumented immigrants deported during Napolitano’s tenure.

Contact Sophie Mattson at smattson@dailycal.org.

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Joe Wright/File

SAN FRANCISCO — The UC Board of Regents moved forward Tuesday with plans to repair the university-owned Blake House, an abandoned mansion that traditionally has housed the UC president and served as a space for UC functions in the Bay Area.

The planned renovations will cost $370,000 and are the beginning of a discussion about how to handle the property. The regents also approved a $250,000 plan to survey various options, ranging from full-scale renovation to selling the estate.

This money will come exclusively from the Searles Fund — a private endowment typically used by the university for housing presidents and chancellors. Initial renovation plans include roof repair and restoration of water-damaged facilities.

“We should focus on what’s the best use for this piece of property,” said UC Regent Hadi Makarechian. “Is it sale, renovations, divisions? We shouldn’t just spend money to fix the roof and then do nothing.”

The regents’ talk of renovation follows years of neglect.

The Blake House has been vacant since 2008, when plans to renovate the landmark fell to the wayside in light of the economic crisis. The 1920s mansion, first given to the university in 1957, lies four miles north of the UC Berkeley campus, and former UC president Robert Dynes was the last to live there.

Regent Frederick Ruiz suggested at the meeting that the university look into selling the property instead of seeking costly renovations. He expressed concern that the house’s location was “not adequate” for entertaining.

“Why don’t we put 2 million in and sell it and find better use for that money?” Ruiz said.

However, Nathan Brostrom, the university’s executive vice president for business operations, said selling the Blake House is not a viable option for the university. UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design maintains control of the estate’s expansive gardens and uses them for teaching and research. If the university sells the Blake House, the money from the sale will go exclusively to an endowment for the college and not toward the purchase of another home for the UC president, Brostrom said.

The regents’ agenda said renovating the Blake House will be cheaper for the university over a 15-year span than continuing to lease housing for the UC president and renting facilities for UC events.

Janet Napolitano, the incoming UC president, will live in an alternative Oakland residence whose monthly rent of $9,950 is paid by the university. The university signed a two-year lease for the home that began Sept. 1, according to UC spokesperson Steve Montiel.

The university will discuss potential long-term plans for the property as early as January, according to Patrick Lenz, the UC Office of the President’s vice president of budget and capital resources.

“We have a sense of the problem, but we will not know the specific dollar amounts until we go through the process of getting an assessment of what it’s going to cost,” Lenz said at the meeting.

The university estimates the total cost of the renovations will be between $3.5 million and $6 million. Lenz said the university also will want to confer with Napolitano before moving forward with any plans.

The regents also examined the university’s overall financial situation at their meeting Wednesday, discussing the 2014-15 budget as well as their long-term budget model. Brostrom urged the regents to consider moderate tuition hikes in the long-term plan, despite Gov. Jerry Brown’s request that the university freeze tuition in the next few years.

​“For the quality of the university, if we could have steady, predictable increases, that is the kind of compact that we should have with our students and their families,” Brostrom said.

The regents will vote on the 2014-15 budget — which they discussed only preliminarily at this meeting — in November.

Contact Libby Rainey and Shannon Carroll at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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The meeting, which will run from Tuesday to Thursday, is the last before incoming UC President Janet Napolitano claims the helm of the university at the end of the month. The regents will spend the first two days at the UCSF Mission Bay campus and will end the three-day session  at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, where they’ll tour the laboratory’s facilities and learn about its latest projects.

In response to the passage of Proposition 30 by California voters last year and expected increases in state funding, the regents will discuss and revise the university’s long-term budget model. The regents will also discuss issues under consideration for the 2014-2015 budget, such as funding for mandatory cost increases and other high-priority items.

The regents will formally launch a social media fundraiser aimed at raising money for undergraduate scholarships at Wednesday’s meeting. The fundraiser — coined the Promise for Education — is a crowdfunding effort that asks the public to use Facebook, Twitter and other outlets to campaign for donations to the university. It is partially a response to demands that the university find more creative ways to raise money in the face of budget cuts.

The regents will also consider a plan to renovate the Blake House — an abandoned mansion north of the Berkeley Hills that has traditionally housed the UC President — but has gone unused for more than five years.

But with Napolitano’s imminent arrival, the regents are now considering revamping the estate. On Tuesday, they will be asked to approve preliminary funding of more than half a million dollars for the project. The entire renovation is estimated to cost between $3.5 million and $6 million, according to the meeting agenda.

The regents’ meeting is open to the public Tuesday and Wednesday. Members of the public must make a reservation to participate in the regents’ tour of the laboratory Thursday.

Libby Rainey is the lead higher education reporter. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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Graham Haught/Staff

On Sept. 9, an ASUC-elected official released a scathing note on his website. This note not only criticised a fellow elected official but proceeded to take a stance on legislation that was being introduced in the ASUC Senate. In student politics, this is a common occurrence. However, this note was not posted by an ASUC senator or an executive actively involved in external affairs. The note was posted by Executive Vice President Nolan Pack, whose main role is to facilitate ASUC Senate discussion and maintain respect for all opinions in the chambers. The bill in question was SB 2, which was entitled “A Bill in Support of Undocumented Students and Immigrant Communities.” The bill addressed concerns of the appointment of Janet Napolitano as the new UC president. It calls for a vote of no confidence before she takes office in a few weeks. The content of the bill, however, is beside the point. In a note posted about SB 2 on his website, Pack starts the beginning of his post with this quip:

“Anybody familiar with my history in student government — and my politics more broadly — knows that I am seldom reserved in dispensing criticism. Today, I get the rare — and very meta — opportunity to offer criticism of criticism, or lack thereof.”

As senators who served with Pack while he was an ASUC senator, we would have to agree with his statements about himself. Pack was one of the most polarizing figures while he served as a senator. Not only was he disrespectful to his fellow senators who opposed his opinions, but he was also disrespectful to then-EVP Justin Sayarath who was dealing with the difficult job of moderating a senate that fell into debating some very heated topics (i.e. divestment). Upon his election as EVP, there were many concerns from students about his ability to remain neutral as EVP because of his polarizing nature. Now it seems those concerns have been realized.

In his note, Pack calls out EAVP Safeena Mecklai for her alleged lobbying of ASUC Senators to vote against the bill. However, Mecklai had already voted on the issue in a UCSA vote days prior. She had a right to talk about her decision to vote against the no confidence vote. To say she was lobbying the senators by relaying to the student body why she voted a particular way is naive. Says Pack:

“I refuse to sit idly by as (the Free Speech Movement) legacy is misappropriated by a (student) politician who seems bent on advancing a pro-administration agenda.”

Then, after criticizing another executive for voicing her opinion as the external affairs vice president, Pack hypocritically expresses his own:

“Support Senator Tan’s bill, SB 2, “A Bill in Support of Undocumented Students and Immigrant Communities.”

This is not the only instance where Pack has breached neutrality. Based on his public opposition to a student district plan that was endorsed by the ASUC the previous year, it seems that Pack is trying to be EAVP rather than fulfill the obligations his actual position traditionally requires. If Pack is interested in expressing his opinion consistently on all issues of the ASUC, then it seems as if he should have thought more deeply about which executive position was more of a fit for him.

Having a non-neutral chair of a very politically diverse ASUC Senate is extremely problematic. It has been the history of the EVP position to retain neutrality in order to facilitate a fair discussion of issues. By establishing his views on a senate bill before it is even discussed, senators who oppose Pack’s position are at an inherent disadvantage. Because Pack moderates debates on bills, he has massive control over the direction of a certain issue. The fact that chambers would be biased before senators even enter the floor is inappropriate.

Critics of our stance may believe that Pack has every individual right to say whatever he feels about the bill. We do not deny that Pack has the right to express his opinion on a bill. While Pack may have every individual right to express his opinion on a bill, it simply does not create an effective or fair senate floor, nor does it do service to the position he was elected to serve. Pack can assert his opinions on bills and criticize executives with whom he works a daily basis all he wants. However, the bottom line is that he will be the main catalyst for what looks to be the most ineffective and contentious ASUC that this school has ever seen.

Rosemary Hua and Mihir Deo are former ASUC senators.

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