Who Controls The UC Regents?

by Steve Soto

Can someone tell me how a publicly-financed major university can sack an eminently-qualified law school dean a week after hiring him over right wing pressure, without the Democratically-controlled State Senate making the lives of the University of California regents miserable now and at budget time? How can a university chancellor hire a law school dean and then fire him the next week without getting canned himself for mismanagement?

And how long will it take Senate Pro Tem Don Perata to tell the Regents and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to expect a Senate inquiry into this matter and possible legislative repercussions? If in fact the chancellor at UC-Irvine was being pressured by the regents of the University of California to fire Erwin Chemerinsky because conservatives would be upset by his hiring, then perhaps the State Senate should drag the regents to a public hearing to investigate why conservative Republicans in essence control the University of California.

It’s one thing for a privately funded university to allow whatever right wing whack job it wants like Ken Starr to run its law school, as they are the fools who bankroll it. It is quite another for one of the best public university systems in the world, funded by taxpayers to make hiring decisions based on political pressure.

Please note that of the 26 voting regents, GOP governors Pete Wilson and Schwarzenegger appointed ten of them. Those ten votes with Schwarzenegger’s own vote do not constitute a majority on the board. At a time when Schwarzenegger is on the verge of a major accomplishment in getting a bipartisan health care reform proposal passed, does he need a fight with Senate Democrats on this?

Hat tip to Atrios