Understaffing reportedly leading to dispatchers working overtime, stress-related health issues

In late September, University of California Dispatchers asked the UC Regents for support in addressing the safety concerns caused by understaffing.

Public safety dispatchers work with campus police departments and take care of all emergency calls for the UC, including safety, fire and rescue calls. They also help assess the nature and priority of calls for assistance, determine and assign appropriate resources and document the resulting response.

According to a press release from Teamsters Local 2010, the union that represents dispatchers at every UC, campuses systemwide are so understaffed that many of the dispatchers go without breaks and lunch and may work 20 days in a row.

“No one should have to work 20 days straight just because they cannot hire enough people,” said Christian Castro, a communications coordinator at Teamster Local 2010.

In addition, all dispatchers were expected to pick up overtime everyday, which ended up impacting their personal life and families.

“In the last month, I and my colleagues have worked at least 18 consecutive days to ensure adequate staffing for the safety of our officers and the UCLA community,” said Lori Hancock, a UCLA dispatcher. “This is too much to ask of any employee, especially for those who have the well-being of others in their hands.”

According to the press release, many of the affected dispatchers had reported health issues including fainting, panic attacks and heart problems associated with workplace stress.

“They keep working because they care about their job and the safety of the students and community,” Castro said.

So far, the UC Regents have yet to give a response.

“They should hire more dispatchers so that the ones currently employed are not overexerted,” said fourth-year psychology major, Jeanette Vuong. “ These individuals are tasked with aiding students in need, which is a stressful job, and I highly doubt we absolutely have no funds to hire more dispatchers.”

Written By Clara Zhao — campus@theaggie.org

Housed in Asian American Studies Department, The Bulosan Center is product of grassroots volunteers

On Sep. 29, a fundraising dinner marked the opening of the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies. Formed within the Asian American Studies department and located on the third floor of Hart Hall, the center will serve as a space for undergraduate and graduate research and advocacy.

The Bulosan Center — named for Filipino writer Carlos Bulosan —  was initiated and completed under the leadership of Asian American Studies Department Chair and Professor Robyn Rodriguez. After completing her undergraduate studies at UC Santa Barbara, Rodriguez went on to graduate school at UC Berkeley where she and her peers noticed a need for Filipino representation among faculty.

Rodriguez, who became a professor, was recruited by UC Davis for her work with the Filipino diaspora.

“Having had the experience I had at graduate school and knowing the state of the field, knowing that I was probably one of only a handful at any UCs to do this kind of work, I thought this could be an opportunity to form a center,” Rodriguez said.

The Bulosan Center is also a result of the department’s work on the preservation of Filipino-American history.

Assemblymember Rob Bonta, the first Filipino-American California assemblymember, proposed Assembly Bill 123, mandating the inclusion of Filipino-American curriculum in K-12 history and social studies. In response to the need for corroborated accounts, the Asian American Studies department began a grant-funded project for an archive of the Filipino contribution to the 1960s farm workers struggle titled the Welga! Digital Archive.

“The problem was there isn’t a whole lot of scholarship or research on that topic and as a community we didn’t have any central archive where our experiences have been recorded and preserved,” Rodriguez said. “Even if teachers wanted to include this history there was very little to work with.”

In 2017, according to the UC Office of the President’s Disaggregated Data, there were 12,623 Filipino students in the UC system. Of those, 1,759 were from UC Davis. The Bulosan Center is the first of its kind as a space for Filipino-American Studies at a research university.

“It was about time … to have a specific space catering to not just our history but also issues facing our communities locally as well as nationwide as well as back in the Philippines,” said Wayne Jopanda, a Ph.D. student in the Cultural Studies Department and a volunteer at the Bulosan Center. “It’s not just a place for research. It’s a place for community engagement and to build those bridges between academia [and] our community, as well as other marginalized communities.”

In the summer of 2018, Rodriguez and a community of graduate and undergraduate students formed a coalition of volunteers interested in expanding the work of the Welga! Project. The idea became the conception of a center for Filipino studies on campus.

Volunteers collaborated with the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns, Migrante, LEAD Filipino, Philippine National Day Association and UC Davis Filipinx undergraduate student organizations to raise funds and lead up to the center’s launch on the Sep. 29.

“It wasn’t until I came to UC Davis and started taking Asian American Studies courses and joined the [Filipino-American] community did I begin learning just how rich Fil-Am history was. I learned what an integral role our predecessors played in shaping my present,” said Leigh Bagood, third-year communication major and one of the center’s social media volunteers.

The effort was composed of a core group of volunteers that collected donations internationally and nationally, from the Davis community and from their own personal contributions to amass an amount of approximately $30,000. Their goal is to sustain their donorship for a consistent intake to fund their work in research and expansion.  

“We want to serve not just the UC Davis community on campus, but the UC system as well,” Jopanda said. “Whether that be through workshops, whether that be through Know Your Rights campaigns, whether that be through connecting with students in Public Health or the medical school and bringing folks around to provide potential health care services for folks who may not have health care or have access to that care. It’s really going to be reactionary to what’s needed in our community.”

Future projects for the Bulosan Center include expanding the Welga! Project to archive Filipino contributions to politics and activism, researching the consequences of trafficked Filipino immigrant workers and the funding for a national survey on Filipino health and mental health.

Rodriguez attributed the distinctiveness of the Bulosan Center in its capacity for research and its focus on Filipino-American history, compared to other collegiate Filipino centers of study who focus primarily on the Philippines.

“If you don’t have representation or support for research for your community from research institutions, and this is true for all minorities, then there’s a real risk that people’s histories and experiences won’t get preserved,” Rodriguez said. “People in the field of Filipino Studies recognize that this is huge even to have a tiny little space at a major research university where you have a center of gravity of people who are working hard and promoting this field of study.”

Written by: Elizabeth Mercado — campus@theaggie.org

“Free Speech on Campus” book advocates for free speech, even if offensive

On Oct. 4, UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman spoke at an event titled “Free Speech On Campus” at the Student Community Center.

Gillman recently co-wrote a book of the same title with UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and used the event to promote the book and discuss free speech. Following his speech, Gillman answered audience questions.

The event was classified as a chancellor’s special event.

“While public spaces remain open to free speech, universities can draw the line at harassment, true threats or other speech acts unprotected by the First Amendment, as well as discrimination that encroaches upon dormitories and classrooms, for example,” a UC Davis news release, which discussed the event beforehand, explained.

After studying and teaching constitutional law his entire adult life, and amid recent instances of UC campuses being forced to face the complexities of free speech, Gillman spoke about his urge to write the book.

American campuses, Gillman said, are riddled with a generation of students who have been “so protected by their communities that they are not capable of coping.”

Gillman said that “the arguments for limiting hate speech are strong,” and acknowledged how hate speech “hurts marginalized communities.”

“Let’s acknowledge that ideas can be harmful,” Gillman said.

However, he argued that censorship and the regulation of ideas is even more harmful, and claimed that universities have no jurisdiction over hate speech.

“We argue that any viewpoint can be expressed on campus,” Gillman said. “It is still not legal for public universities, such as UC, to enforce hate speech codes.”

Gillman discussed having controversial speakers, like conservative Milo Yiannopoulos, who has mocked and doxxed transgender students on campuses he has visited, or white supremacist and alt-right figurehead Richard Spencer, on campus.

“I had Milo twice on campus,” Gillman said. “Milo or Richard Spencer are silenced while their critics are not. A campus cannot deny a speaker a forum.”

Gillman described what he called the “culture wars” happening at universities — both Gillman and Chemerinsky grew up among the civil rights movement and anti-war movement.

“We wrote our book in the hope that we could provide background on free speech,” Gillam said. “Students have no exposure to the history of free speech, or main arguments for why free speech might deserve special protection.”

Connor Gorman, a UC Davis graduate student worker, contested Gillman’s argument via email interview, citing perceived damage done by propping up marginalizing language under the guise of “free speech.”

“UC administrators often advocate for very limited and superficial notions of free speech while simultaneously being clear hypocrites when it comes to this issue,” Gorman said. “They fail to account for relevant power dynamics and the fact that oppressive, bigoted beliefs abound in U.S. society. In fact, the U.S. is based on structural violence that’s directed toward the most marginalized communities.”

To Gorman, allowing Yiannopoulos to speak became indirect support by administration, encouraging both implicit and explicit discrimination by not condemning hate speech.

“A true commitment to free speech would involve reducing the number of platforms provided to these ideas while increasing the exposure of ideas that challenge systems of oppression rather than upholding them,” Gorman said. “On top of this, UC administrators are notorious for their repression of student, worker and community actions that oppose their undeserved wealth and power from the infamous UC Davis Pepper Spray incident to the SJA charges brought against participants in a recent Mrak Hall sit-in.”

Amara Miller, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology, echoed Gorman’s sentiments, saying via email that it’s ironic “UC administration is promoting ‘free speech’ given many of their new policies that seek to address controversial speakers on campus actually criminalize student counter-protest.”

“Administrative decisions about whose speech is highlighted, both in terms of […] dangerous speakers being given university platforms as well as this Chancellor whose voice is promoted here in this event, illustrate the way ‘free speech’ is already and always implicated in power relationships that amplify the voices of powerful white actors and silence the voices of marginalized communities on our campuses who are most directly impacted by far-right violence,” Miller said.

In his speech, Gillman reiterated his belief that all universities should allow alt-right speakers like Spencer or Yiannopoulos.

“Milo is coming back to my campus in a few weeks,” Gillman said. ”I can’t deny college Republicans their right just because I don’t like Milo’s views.”

Written by: Aaron Liss — campus@theaggie.org

AFSCME alleges UC Davis not complying with California environmental law

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents over 25,000 UC workers, filed a lawsuit regarding UC Davis’ Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), which includes projects aimed to increase student housing in Davis. The lawsuit claimed the university did not adequately analyze the potential impact of these projects on “agriculture resources, air quality, biological resources, greenhouse gas emissions, noise, traffic, housing and populations and aesthetics.”

Both university and student government leaders have condemned and criticized the lawsuit for its potential to stall the construction of additional student housing amid a lengthy housing crisis in the City of Davis.

When asked for comment, John de Los Angeles, a spokesperson for AFSCME, said via email that he “cannot comment on the lawsuit at this time.”

According to Vice Chancellor of Finance, Operations and Administration Kelly Ratliff, the LRDP included an expansion of West Village and Orchard Park, with plans to add an additional 3,270 beds in West Village.

According to Kirsten Stevenson, the senior campus counsel for the UC Office of the President, the university went through a public input process before finalizing the LRDP. Stevenson said that AFSCME was one of many entities that weighed in on the environmental impact of the LRDP.

“Lots of individuals and entities — the City of Davis, Yolo County — submitted comment letters to say, ‘Hey you didn’t properly analyze this or mitigate this impact appropriately,’” Stevenson said. “Part of the law requires that whatever public agency is going through [this] process listens to those comments, reflects upon those problems and makes some decisions before they actually finalize the environmental impact report that is associated with the Long Range Development Plan.”

The law Stevenson referenced is the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which aims to maintain the quality of the environment.

More information about the environmental impacts of the LRDP can be found on the UC Davis Campus Tomorrow website, which includes a document of all the comments received on the LRDP and the university’s responses to the comments.

Stevenson said that the City of Davis and Yolo County raised concerns about the LRDP and its environmental impact and eventually came to an agreement after negotiations. According to Stevenson, however, when AFSCME raised concerns later on, the university and AFSCME were unable to reach an agreement.

“[AFSCME] wound up filing a lawsuit and their claim is that the university has not complied with the California Environmental Quality Act,” Stevenson said. “They claim that, in a variety of different areas, we haven’t adequately mitigated the environmental impacts — for example, greenhouse gases or impacts to roads — of the plans that we are proposing to undertake.”

In a statement released Sept. 28, the university said it is “perplexed and profoundly disappointed” by the lawsuit.

“We have previously made a series of generous offers to AFSCME that would have benefited UC Davis’ represented service workers and enabled UC Davis’ housing projects to move forward,” the statement read. “Despite agreement that more student housing is a benefit to all, AFSCME’s suit will likely prevent UC Davis from building affordable student housing in the near term.”

Stevenson explained what she believes to be AFSCME’s argument in the lawsuit.

“I believe their position is that if the employees used for student housing projects on this campus are not university employees, there will be environmental impacts because the people who ultimately fill those positions will come from further away to work on the UC Davis campus,” Stevenson said. “So there will be more greenhouse gas emissions, and there will be more damage to the roads.”

One of AFSCME’s primary concerns is the UC’s outsourcing of jobs. While discussing potential outcomes of this lawsuit, Stevenson mentioned that she believes a court will never require the university to use UC employees during or after the completion of the LRDP.

“Bottom line, there is a very limited number of remedies available in this type of litigation, and there is no remedy whatsoever where a court would order us to hire university employees for a project,” Stevenson said.

AFSCME’s concern with outsourcing — the use of non-UC employees for work on campus projects — may be valid, as Stevenson said the employees that private developers hire are not chosen by the university.

“There’s a very discreet set of projects — public private partnerships — and they’re used for student housing projects, and it is a means of developing student housing that can be done more affordably for students,” Stevenson said. “When we bid those projects out to developers, we tell them to use whatever they want. They have to come back to us with a proposal, and if it’s university [workers], great.”

ASUCD President Michael Gofman, External Vice President Edgar Masias-Malagon and Democrat Delegate and Union Steward Sean Raycraft signed a joint statement discouraging AFSCME’s lawsuit and any efforts “that would delay progress on the university’s housing plan.”

“[We] condemn the use of students’ welfare as a bargaining chip, and urge AFSCME to consider the effect on students their actions will take,” the statement read.

The statement claimed that UC Davis students “have played a critical role in many of AFSCME’s efforts over the past few years,” making AFSCME’s lawsuit “appalling and disheartening” in that it might delay or stall the construction of additional student housing.

In response, the ASUCD Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission, posted a statement to Facebook regarding both the joint statement published by ASUCD and AFSCME’s lawsuit.

“AFSCME’s concern with the LRDP was/is valid in that they believe student housing should not be taken up on the basis of contracting out UC jobs and putting womxn, immigrant, black and brown, working class individuals at harm,” the post said. “Moreover, it is utterly disappointing and immoral to […] somehow [imply] that ASUCD has, as an association, taken several initiatives to support UC workers. The truth is, it has not.”

A separate statement from ASUCD signed by Gofman, Masias-Malagon, Office of Advocacy and Student Representation Legislative Director Jake Sedgley and student Senator Alisha Hacker, discouraged any efforts that would delay progress on the construction of housing.

“[We] urge all parties to understand the real and acute consequences we the students would feel in any delay,” the statement read.

Written By: Sabrina Habchi  — campus@theaggie.org