UCSC Dean of Graduate Studies Termination Letter to 54 Grad Strikers

Faculty Letter Opposing Request that UCSC Undergrads Inform on Disruptors

February 13, 2020

Dear Chancellor Larive and Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Kletzer,

We, the California Scholars for Academic Freedom,* a group of over two hundred scholars throughout California, write with grave concern about the Google form “Notification of Class and Section Disruption” sent on February 7, 2020 to UCSC undergraduates in relation to the graduate student strike demanding a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA).  This form asks students to surveil and report on conversations occurring in the course of instruction.  It sets a dangerous precedent of surveillance that undermines the core principles of academic freedom.

The university produces knowledge and practice critical to the operations of a democracy. The ideal of academic freedom is at the core of the university in a democratic society. 

Academic freedom is a cornerstone of education in a free society. Its definition includes such items as what are called ‘the four essential freedoms’ of a university, to determine, on academic grounds, who will teach, what they may teach, how they teach and who may study.

Academic freedom requires that faculty and students can participate in intellectual debate free of any censorship or retaliation. Central to academic freedom is that the political, religious, or philosophical beliefs of others, including politicians, administrators and members of the public shall not be imposed on students or faculty. 

California Scholars for Academic Freedom call on you rescind the link to the Google form and refuse to use any data collected through that mechanism as the grounds for disciplinary measures against faculty and students.

On behalf of California Scholars for Academic Freedom,

Susan Slyomovics

Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

ssly@anthro.ucla.edu

Walid Afifi

University of California - Santa Barbara

Professor, Dept of Communication

Director, Center for Middle East Studies

Craig Reinarman

Professor Emeritus of Sociology & Legal Studies

Rachel Carson College 338

University of California

Santa Cruz, CA 95064

831-459-2617

Sondra Hale, Professor Emerita

Anthropology and Gender Studies, UCLA. sonhale@ucla.edu

                                          

An Open Letter to the UCSC Administration

By Ronnie Lipschutz (Political Science, UCSC))

February 20, 2020

To: Chancellor Cynthia Larive, Provost, and EVC Lori Kletzer

From: Ronnie Lipschutz

I write this letter as an individual faculty member who has been at UCSC since 1990.  I am not representing any faculty group, department or Academic Senate Committee.  It is my own assessment after 30 years at this campus.

I attended the Academic Senate meeting on Wednesday, February 19, and felt a growing sense of dismay as I listened to your presentations and your responses to questions from the floor.  I was especially dismayed by EVC Kletzer’s repeated statement that she did not know what would happen after the Friday midnight deadline issued to the striking TAs to turn in Fall grades.  Nor was I reassured by her stated position that, should a shortage of qualified TAs follow, departments and faculty are responsible for dealing with problems of enrollments, class capacity, teaching and workload. While I am aware that such decisions are generally made “locally,” this response is a rather disingenuous one and ignores the fact that the present situation is a consequence of Administration decisions and actions taken over the past decade. Over that time, the Administration has paid little heed to either Senate or faculty warnings about the lack of funding to support new initiatives, such as graduate growth, Silicon Valley and others.  Now the faculty is being asked to address the results of 20 years of poor administration, planning and judgement. 

I will not belabor this last point except to point out that the increase in undergraduate enrollments since 2000—which have greatly exacerbated the local housing crisis—have also required growing graduate student enrollment to teach them, without having in hand the necessary resources to support the latter.  Generally, the formula was something like the following: undergraduate growth would bring in the tuition required to fund teaching while graduate growth would facilitate research and recognition which, in turn, would provide the extramural research funds and private donations that would support such growth.

Moreover, so far as I can recall, during those two decades, a number of strategic academic plans were prepared explaining that such growth was necessary for the glory of UCSC, without any transparent, public explanation of how the necessary funding was to be procured. This hallucinatory vision became dogma ten years ago when UCOP offered “rebenching” funds in exchange for a new “graduate growth” initiative. These funds were accepted with in full recognition that they were insufficient to support the new FTEs and graduates students coming to campus. 

I will not repeat here the many assurances that were offered by the Administration about how such growth would be achieved—those are available in the many documents and studies, none of which clearly explained how this would be financed.  And, until the TA strike, the Administration continued to blithely assume continued undergraduate and graduate growth as necessary from both financial and branding perspectives. Needless to say, we are now reaping the whirlwind. The Administration appears poised to use the TA strike as a pretext for reducing graduate enrollments to levels that can be funded given available resources.  If this is the plan, it is an extremely cynical one. 

Furthermore, to put the onus on faculty for dealing with the resulting crisis is even more cynical.  I do not blame you for this situation; it is the result of two decades of administrative ineptness and opacity as mentioned above.  But to shift the burden of coping to faculty, who will have to scramble to adapt, and undergraduates, who will be shut out of necessary classes and receive a degraded education, is inexcusable.  

Finally, to announce that yet another committee will be established to consider the contradictions is simply kicking the can down the road.  We all know that such committees tend to make reasonable recommendations that cannot be funded, and that their reports end up on a (metaphorical) shelf somewhere, to be ignored the next time a similar problem arises.

Which leads to the fiction of “shared governance.”  Somehow, there is a wide (mis)perception that this means joint management between administration and faculty.  Of course, it means no such thing: the Administration decides what it wants to do and then consults with the Faculty Senate for comments (with objections routinely ignored). Over the past decade, there were ample warnings from faculty that the graduate growth initiative was unsupportable, but these were simply dismissed with the proviso that “we will take care of it.”  So, perhaps you should take care of this, rather than shifting the onus onto the faculty.

If this letter sounds bitter, it is—very bitter. For 30 years, I participated in what was a promising and exciting experiment and that has been transformed from gold to dross.  I am retiring at the end of June and so none of this matters very much to me in practical terms.  But it matters greatly to undergraduates, whose credentials may well be very tarnished by this fiasco, to the graduate students, who were made promises that have been broken repeatedly and many of whom have, at best, a future career of “freeway flying” in store, and to faculty and staff, who have to bear the burden of the Administration’s generally inept administration.  We have ethical obligations to our students and, if we cannot fulfill them, we would do better not to make empty promises to them in the first place.

CUCFA Letter to President Napolitano on the Crisis at UCSC

Dear President Napolitano,

We share with you a commitment to the mission of the University of California. Your February 14 letter to the UC Santa Cruz community, however, raises concerns among faculty across the UC system about how best to address the crisis under which many of our graduate students live. This is a crisis born of rapid increases in housing costs with which graduate student incomes have long not kept pace. A thriving graduate student body is essential to our research and teaching, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The graduate student demand for cost of living increases, begun in actions at UC Santa Cruz and now spreading across the system, is an acute response to unsustainable conditions. A punitive response to these actions, resulting in the dismissal of hundreds of Academic Student Employees, will disrupt the education of thousands of undergraduates and will make the work of many UCSC faculty difficult or impossible. Therefore we urge you to work to achieve a speedy and satisfactory solution to the cost of living crisis that we all recognize. We all hope for a quick solution that will both address legitimate and pressing graduate student concerns and not interfere with faculty ability to do their jobs.

Sincerely yours,
The Executive Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations

Over 200 UCSC Faculty Respond to Administration's Efforts to Surveil Graduate Student Employees

February 8, 2020

Dear Chancellor Larive and iCPEVC Kletzer:

We, the undersigned faculty members, are writing to express our unequivocal opposition to the practices and principles underlying the “Notification of Class and Section Disruption” Google form accessible through the notify the campus hotlink in the February 7, 2020, Public Affairs communication titled “Unsanctioned strike by some graduate students” (pasted below).  In addition to concerns about academic freedom, we are extremely alarmed by the culture of surveillance and reporting encouraged and facilitated by such an approach.

As you are well aware, the foundation of any research university is the creation and free exchange of knowledge, principles reflected in the tenure system and, in the University of California, through guarantees of academic freedom (APM 010). Additionally, the University of California has sought to reiterate these principles with the recent creation of a National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. The free exchange of knowledge—the very cornerstone of the university—is compromised when everyone in our community is encouraged to survey and report on conversations occurring in the course of instruction. Indeed, we all—Senate faculty, lecturers, graduate student instructors, TAs, and students—work tremendously hard and conscientiously to create learning environments in which everyone can speak freely to discuss a wealth of subjects and to address a range of different perspectives. This is an increasingly challenging task in a social/cultural/political moment when discourse is highly fractured and fractious, and a mechanism for reporting “class and section disruption,” especially one haunted by the specter of McCarthyism, only exacerbates this trend of fractious and fractured rhetoric. Within such an environment, genuine dialogue and the free exchange of knowledge are nearly impossible. This inhibits academic freedom and ultimately undermines the core mission and values of the University of California and UCSC.

In addition to our fundamental opposition to these practices of surveillance and reporting, the Google form for reporting class and section disruptions raises a number of red flags in terms of academic freedom. Our reading of both APM 010 and the AAUP 1940 statement on academic freedom is that we have a basic right to teach our subjects as we see fit, which we understand to include changing the day’s activities to respond to immediate learning opportunities provided by current events or news of previously unknown research innovations. Moreover, even when AAUP notes the limits to such a right (i.e., that instructors should “be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject”), it nonetheless acknowledges that such a limit is primarily intended to “underscore the need for teachers to avoid persistently intruding material which has no relation to their subject.” Such rights and protections not only safeguard the ability to change the material and/or the sequence of activities in our courses in order to respond to emergent circumstances but they also allow for the introduction of new material not specified on the syllabus if related to the overall course, so long as we are able to articulate those connections.

Like you, we are concerned about the quality of our students’ education, and we want to hear from them about their educational experiences. That said, we believe that students already have processes for sharing their experiences, both positive and negative, including grievance procedures and student evaluations of teaching. In addition, we are certain that students make regular use of publicly available email addresses for campus administrators in order to register their concerns and complaints.

Given the gravity of our concerns about the free exchange of knowledge, we hope that you will disable the link to the Google form and refuse to use any data collected through that mechanism as the grounds for disciplinary measures against faculty and students.

Sincerely,
1. Kimberly Lau, Professor, Literature
2. Jessica Taft, Associate Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies
3. H. Marshall Leicester, Professor, Literature
4. Christine Hong, Associate Professor, Literature and CRES
5. Irene Lusztig, Professor, Film + Digital Media
6. Megan Thomas, Associate Professor, Politics
7. Muriam Haleh Davis, Assistant Professor, History
8. Josh Brahinsky, Lecturer, College 10
9. Hunter Bivens, Associate Professor, Literature
10. Rick Prelinger, Professor, Film + Digital Media
11. Dorian Bell, Associate Professor, Literature
12. Gail Hershatter, Distinguished Professor, History
13. Thomas Serres, Lecturer, Politics
14. B. Ruby Rich, Professor, Film + Digital Media
15. Peter Limbrick, Professor, Film and Digital Media
16. Neda Atanasoski, Professor, Feminist Studies and CRES
17. Grace Pena Delgado, Associate Professor, History
18. Matthew Lasar, Lecturer, History
19. Catherine Jones, Associate Professor, History
20. Christine King, Lecturer, Kresge & Porter Colleges
21. Leslie Lopez, Continuing Lecturer, Community Studies and Oakes College
22. Boreth Ly, Associate Professor, HAVC
23. Christie McCullen, Lecturer, Sociology & Oakes College
24. Hillary Angelo, Assistant Professor, Sociology
25. Edmund Burke III, Research Professor of History Emeritus
26. Deborah Gould, Associate Professor, Sociology
27. David H Anthony, Associate Professor, History
28. David Brundage, Professor, History
29. Edward Kehler, Lecturer, History & Stevenson College
30. Regina Day Langhout, Professor, Psychology
31. Vanita Seth, Associate Professor, Politics
32. Ben Leeds Carson, Associate Professor of Music and Kresge College Provost
33. Alma Heckman, Assistant Professor, History
34. Jody Greene, Professor of Literature and Associate Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning
35. Chris Chen, Assistant Professor, Literature
36. Fernando Leiva, Associate Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies
37. Daniel L. Selden, Professor of Literature
38. Megan McDrew, Lecturer, Sociology
39. Amanda M. Smith, Assistant Professor, Literature
40. Sylvanna M. Falcón, Associate Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies
41. Eric Porter, Professor, History of Consciousness, History, and CRES
42. T. J. Demos, Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture
43. Nicolas Davidenko, Associate Professor, Psychology
44. Shelly Grabe, Professor, Psychology
45. Zac Zimmer, Assistant Professor, Literature
46. Irene Gustafson, Associate Professor, Film and Digital Media
47. Jason Samaha, assistant professor, psychology.
48. Martin Devecka, Assistant Professor, Literature
49. Heather Bullock, Professor, Psychology
50. Margarita Azmitia, Professor, Psychology
51. Jeff Erbig, Assistant Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies
52. Jackie Gehring, Associate Teaching Professor, Politics and Legal Studies
53. Kyle Parry, Assistant Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture
54. Marcia Ochoa, Associate Professor, Feminist Studies and Interim Provost of Oakes College
55. Carla Freccero, Distinguished Professor, Literature & History of Consciousness
56. Amy Mihyang Ginther, Assistant Professor, Theater Arts
57. A.M. Darke, Assistant Professor, Digital Arts and New Media, Games and Playable Media
58. Anjuli Verma, Assistant Professor, Politics Department & Legal Studies Program
59. Dard Neuman, Associate Professor, Music
60. Maureen Callanan, Professor, Psychology
61. Karlton Hester, Professor, Music
62. A.Laurie Palmer, Professor, Art
63. Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, Feminist Studies and CRES
64. Julie Guthman, Professor of Social Sciences and Community Studies Program
65. Rob Wilson, Professor, Literature
66. Cynthia Lewis, Professor, Education
67. Madhavi Murty, Assistant Professor, Feminist Studies
68. Juned Shaikh, Assistant Professor, History
69. Carolyn Dean, Professor, History of Art & Visual Culture
70. Warren Sack, Professor, Film & Digital Media
71. Amy Lonetree, Associate Professor, History
72. Amy Beal, Professor, Music
73. Dee Hibbert-Jones, Professor, Art
74. Ron Glass, Professor, Education
75. Phillip Hammack, Professor and Chair, Psychology
76. Noriko Aso, Associate Professor, History
77. Christina Ravelo, Professor and Chair, Ocean Sciences
78. Larry Polansky, Emeritus Professor, Music
79. Russell C. Rodríguez, Assistant Professor, Music
80. Kent Eaton, Professor and Chair, Politics
81. Sara Niedzwiecki, Assistant Professor, Politics
82. Vilashini Cooppan, Professor, Literature
83. Lindsey Dillon, Assistant Professor, Sociology
84. Donna Haraway, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness
85. Elizabeth Stephens, Professor of Art lee valley
86. Marcelo D. Viana Neto, Visiting Assistant Professor, Art & Design: Games and Playable Media
87. Elisabeth Cameron, Professor, HAVC
88. Anjali Arondekar, Associate Professor, Feminist Studies
89. Saskias Casanova, Assistant Professor, Psychology
90. Kim Cardilla, Lecturer, Psychology
91. Susan Strome, Distinguished Professor & Chair of MCD Biology
92. Mark Anderson, Associate Professor, Anthropology
93. Elliot Anderson, Associate Professor, Art
94. Martha Zúñiga, Professor, MCD Biology
95. Miriam Greenberg, Professor, Sociology
96. Massimiliano Tomba, History of Consciousness
97. Nathaniel Deutsch, Professor, History
98. Andrew Mathews, Anthropology
99. Jerry Zee, Assistant Professor, Anthropology
100. Lars Fehren-Schmitz, Associate Professor of Anthropology
101. Mayanthi Fernando, Associate Professor of Anthropology
102. Jon Daehnke, Associate Professor, Anthropology
103. Matt O’Hara, Professor, History
104. Jeremy Lee, Teaching Professor, MCD Biology
105. Lindsay Hinck, Professor, MCD Biology
106. Peter Weiss, Continuing Lecturer, Chemistry and Biochemistry
107. James Clifford, Professor Emeritus, History of Consciousness
108. Alan Kawamoto, Professor, Psychology
109. Don Brenneis, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
110. Mathis Hain, Assistant Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences
111. Nirvikar Singh, Distinguished Professor of Economics
112. Nidhi Mahajan, Assistant Professor, Anthropology
113. Anna Friz, Assistant Professor, Film & Digital Media
114. Nina Treadwell, Professor, Music
115. Catherine Ramírez, Associate Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies
116. Flora Lu, Professor of Environmental Studies
117. Barbara Rogoff, UCSC Foundation Distinguished Professor of Psychology
118. Campbell Leaper, Professor, Psychology
119. Chris Benner, Professor, Environmental Studies and Sociology, Dorothy E. Everett Chair of Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship.
120. Tanya Merchant, Associate Professor, Music
121. Julie Bettie, Associate Professor, Sociology
122. Eva Bertram, Associate Professor, Politics
123. Robert Majzler, Lecturer, Psychology and College 10
124. Abel Rodriguez, Professor, Statistics
125. Kevin MacClaren, Lecturer, Stevenson College
126. Lindsey Kuper, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
127. Owen Arden, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
128. micha cárdenas, Assistant Professor, Art and Design: Games and Playable Media, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
129. Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Professor, Computational Media
130. Benjamin Storm, Associate Professor, Psychology
131. Noel Smyth, Lecturer, History
132. Karen Bassi, Professor, Literature and Classics
133. Alice Yang, Associate Professor, History & CRES and Stevenson Provost
134. Eileen Zurbriggen, Professor, Psychology
135. Manuel Ares, Jr. Distinguished Research Professor, MCD Biology
136. Joshua Arribere, Assistant Professor, MCD Biology
137. Sheeva Sabati, Lecturer, Feminist Studies, Oakes, Colleges 9/10
138. Micah Perks, Professor, Literature
139. Cynthia Polecritti, Associate Professor, History
140. Upasna Sharma, Assistant Professor, MCD Biology
141. Hiroshi Fukurai, Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies
142. Brij Lunine, Lecturer, Writing
143. Gerald Casel, Associate Professor, Theater Arts
144. Dean Mathiowetz, Associate Professor, Politics
145. Melissa Gwyn, Associate Professor, Art
146. Christopher Connery, Professor, Literature
147. Rebecca Covarrubias, Associate Professor, Psychology
148. Peter Alvaro, Computer Science and Engineering
149. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, Distinguished Research Professor, Anthropology
150. Elizabeth Beaumont, Associate Professor of Politics and Legal Studies
151. Mark Baker, Continuing Lecturer, Writing Program and Oakes College
152. Bryan Holbrook, Lecturer, Psychology
153. Janette Dinishak, Associate Professor, Philosophy
154. Lisa Rofel, Professor Emeritus and Research Professor, Anthropology
155. Seshadhri Comandur, Associate Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
156. Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Professor and Graduate Director, Literature
157. Dion Farquhar, Continuing Lecturer, Crown College
158. Camilla Hawthorne, Assistant Professor, Sociology
159. Banu Bargu, Associate Professor, History of Consciousness
160. Caren Camblin, Continuing Lecturer, Stevenson College & College Ten
161. Ronnie D. Lipschutz, Professor of Politics
162. Susan Gillman, Distinguished Professor of Literature
163. Kiva Silver, Continuing Lecturer, Stevenson, Writing & History
164. Ellen Newberry, Continuing Lecturer, Writing Program
165. Sandy Archimedes, Continuing Lecturer, Writing Program
166. Luca de Alfaro, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
167. Zeb Rifaqat, lecturer, Stevenson College
168. Erica Halk, Continuing Lecturer, Writing Program
169. Patty Gallagher, Professor, Theater Arts
170. Phokion G. Kolaitis, Distinguished Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
171. Martine Schlag, Professor and Chair, Computer Science and Engineering
172. Megan Moodie, Associate Professor, Anthropology
173. Gabriela Arredondo, Associate Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies
174. Judith Scott, Professor, Education
175. James Davis, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
176. Katia Obraczka, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
177. Maywa Montenegro, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies
178. Constance Rockosi, Professor and Co-Chair, Astronomy and Astrophysics
179. Sarah-Hope Parmeter, Lecturer in Writing
180. Robin King, Continuing Lecturer, Writing Program and Oakes College
181. Jeremy Gauger, Lecturer, Kresge College
182. Alan Christy, Associate Professor, History and Provost of Cowell College
183. Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, Professor, Astronomy and Astrophysics
184. Nico Orlandi, Associate Professor, Philosophy
185. Raja GuhaThakurta, Professor and Co-Chair, Astronomy and Astrophysics
186. Ruth Murray-Clay, Associate Professor, Astronomy and Astrophysics
187. Megan McNamara, Lecturer, Sociology
188. Nameera Akhtar, Professor, Psychology
189. Maria Elena Diaz, Assoc Prof. History Dept.
190. George Bunch, Professor, Education
191. Robbie Kubala, Assistant Professor, Philosophy
192. Enrique Martinez Leal, Assistant Professor, Art Department
193. Patricia Pinho, Associate Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies
194. Maya Peterson, Associate Professor, History
195. Jenny Reardon, Professor, Sociology
196. Nicol Hammond, Assistant Professor, Music
197. Emily Honig
198. Noah Finnegan, Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences
199. Claudie Beaulieu, Assistant Professor, Ocean Sciences
200. Andy Skemer, Associate Professor, Astronomy & Astrophysics
201. Melanie Springer, Associate Professor, Politics
202. Judith Aissen, Professor Emerita, Linguistics
203. Mark Nash, Professor, Arts
204. Isaac Julien, Distinguished Professor, Arts
205. Jennifer Derr, Associate Professor of History
206. Juan Poblete, Professor, Literature
207. Greg O’Malley, Associate Professor, History
208. Robert Boltje, Professor of Mathematics
209. Jeremy Hourigan, Associate Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences
210. Camilo Gómez-Rivas, associate professor, Literature
211. Alex Pang, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
212. Faisal Nawab, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
213. Catherine Carlstroem, Lecturer in Humanities
214. Ronaldo V. Wilson, Professor, Literature and Creative Writing, and CRES
215. Hinrich Boeger, Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology
216. Heiner Litz, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering








Below is a copy of the form referred to above:
Notification of class and section disruption
Students who wish to notify the campus about a class or section disruption are able to do so with this form. The form can be used multiple times.


Your email address (ucsc e-mail address is automatically inserted here) will be recorded when you submit this form. Not you? Switch account

What class would you like to provide information about (e.g., MATH 1)?


Did this disruption concern....
o   Primary Lecture or Seminar
o   Required Section, Laboratory, or Studio
o   Optional Section, Laboratory, or Studio
o   Office Hours


What type of disruption occurred?
o   Cancelled
o   Moved to an alternative location or delivery method
o   Held, but the topic was not as described in the syllabus
o   Examination or major assignment cancelled
o   Grades withheld
o   Other:


What day did the disruption happen?


What was the scheduled meeting time?


Who was the teaching assistant or instructor?


Please provide any additional comments, including letting us know if you need additional support so that we can connect you with resources.

Budget Strategy: A Poem

Gavin Newsom took an axe

And gave the budget 40 whacks.

When they saw what he had done

The Board of Regents praised the sun.

Student support all cut out

Diverse publics? Funds in doubt.

The state brought shortfalls far and wide

Their full size the charts did hide

More degrees? 200,000!

More state funds?  You'll do without them!

Note that UCOP in its wisdom

Said poor kids need high tuition

Though low tuition made more sense

 Such proposals brought offense

Fixing buildings - $20 billion!

The state might give you $50 million

More doctorates! we thought you cared

Yes but no, your costs aren't shared

State income's rising, that's quite true

Lots of growth, just not for you.

Faculty Letter Requesting Public Comment on UC's Report on Alliances with Dignity Health

Chris here: you may remember that in May 2019, UCSF was pressured into suspending its negotiations to form an umbrella partnership with Dignity Health, where medical care is limited by the Ethical and Religious Directives and other teachings of the Catholic Church.  UC officials pulled together a task force to study / reopen the issue, which produced a report in record time, yielding a split decision, with an administrative majority favoring expanding affiliations with Dignity Health. 

This letter, co-authored by one of the faculty members of the task force, Vanessa Jacoby, has informational links and a request to support Option 2, no affiliations with Dignity Health and similar health care providers, by sending a public comment to the UC Regents.

 

Dear Colleagues and Community, 

This week, the University of California (UC) released a report with request for public comments (sample text below) that considers whether UC should affiliate with religious hospitals that prohibit basic reproductive health services for women and LGBT people.

The report describes OPTION 1, supported by UC Health, in which UC would expand affiliations with restrictive religious hospitals and OPTION 2, which we support, that prevents UC from affiliating with entities that discriminate against women and LGBT people by prohibiting  contraception, abortion, assisted reproductive technology (eg IVF), and gender-affirming surgery for transgender people as outlined in this LA Times article and this letter to UC President Napolitano. Also consider UCI Law Prof. Goodwin’s assertion that it is illegal for UC to restrict care based on religious directives.

The UC Regents will take up this matter in May, but first they need to hear from you! Please post a public comment by February 21 (sample text below) to tell the Regents that you support OPTION 2 because UC doctors, nurses, and patients must not be subject to religious restrictions that deny women and LGBT people essential care. Share your story and why this issue is important to you.

Thank you for your engagement and support of our core UC values,

Vanessa Jacoby, MD, Lori Freedman, PhD, Dan Grossman, MD, Jody Steinauer, MD, PhD

Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences

University of California, San Francisco