Nonresident UC students will pay $978 more, effective fall of 2018

The UC Regents have just approved a 3.5 percent tuition hike for nonresident students. This tuition hike, an increase in tuition of $978 per nonresident student, will be effective in the fall of 2018.

The tuition hike was approved with a 12-3 vote after UC President Janet Napolitano urged Regents to approve the increase. According to the LA Times, the Regents will rescind the decision if the California legislature ends up increasing funding to the UC.

The impact of the 3.5 percent increase in nonresident tuition will have a $5 million impact on UC Davis. The tuition hike will amount to an overall $34.8 million for the UC.

“We all know that we have to pass this,” said regent Hadi Makarechian at the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee meeting on March 14. “All I’m saying is that we really have to organize all the students so they understand it’s not us — you have to run this institution, you have to build housing, you have to repair.”

The Regents meeting, currently being held at UCLA, was met with widespread student backlash. At UCLA, the LA Times reported that students staged a “Shut Down the Vote” campaign, asking for a rejection of the proposed tuition hike. Students at UC Davis organized the “Rally and Teach-in to Save Public Education!” from 12 to 2 p.m. on March 14.

“Without [these] tuition increases and without borrowing from something to put in some place else, […] this institution is just going to die,” Makarechian said. “We have to approve this, I guess.”

The Regents will vote on the proposed 2.7 percent tuition hike for California students in May. The 2.7 percent increase would amount to $342 per student.

“Even though we’re postponing in-state tuition decision — awaiting hopefully changes in the state budget — this is one that we had determined to go ahead [with],” said chair of the Board of Regents George Kieffer at the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee meeting.

Written by: Hannah Holzer — campus@theaggie.org

Discussion centered around student transportation to UC Regents meeting

On March 2, Students for a Democratic Society met with Sheri Atkinson, the interim associate vice chancellor, and Mayra Llamas, the interim executive director of the Community Resource Centers. Atkinson and Llamas were the only two administrators in attendance. Students at the meeting voiced disappointment over Chancellor Gary May and other administrators’ absences.  

Amara Miller, the head steward of the UC Davis unit of the UC Student-Workers Union UAW 2865 unit and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology, moderated the meeting.

Students posted the same signs in the meeting room in Olson Hall that were shown at the first SDS administration meeting. Two of the signs stated: “I can’t believe we still have to protest this shit” and “We are on stolen Patwin land.” Another sign said “Students over Profit,” with a link to the “Rollback, Redistribute, Restructure the U.C.” petiton and a fourth sign listed May and other administrator’s salaries — many of which exceed $400,000 annually.

Students and administrators at the meeting addressed the topics of coordinating meeting times for the future, reviewing student necessities and accessing timelines to correct student problems. SDS members encouraged further proactivity and initiative by administration, expressing that they do not want to be the only ones advocating for their success as students at a public university.

Students also discussed the problematic nature of UC Board of Regents meetings being held at UCSF — the only UC campus with no undergraduate students. Students centered their discussion on directing administration to advocate for future meetings at more convenient locations for undergraduates.  

However, Atkinson told attendees that while she’s “happy to continue to have meetings, […] having a continuous space set up like this [monthly] is not something that” both parties are in agreement of.

Thomas Jara, a second-year biotechnology major and a SDS member, was vocal at the meeting. Jara and others were under the impression that the meetings would be monthly. As students ran out of time at the one-hour meeting that day, they talked about how there are plenty of important issues to address at future meetings.

Connor Gorman, a fifth-year physics graduate student and a trustee on the statewide executive board of UAW 2865, outlined the current necessity for meetings until demands are met.

“It’s clear there’s material for quite a few meetings,” Gorman said. ”If, in like four years you actually address all the concerns and we were in a fully democratic university that prioritizes students and workers — and not admin and policing — then we can discuss not having regular meetings. But I don’t think that’s gonna happen for a while, and having regular meetings is a great way to get people to come.”

Sydney Lewis, a third-year English major and SDS member, talked about how students do not want this to be an echo chamber of empty agreement.

According to Lewis, if they “funnel it into small action groups, then it’s going to be 10 students talking for everyone,” which Lewis said is what they are fighting against.

Miller outlined student necessities that were agreed upon at the previous SDS-administration meeting.

“Admin will let the whole student population know far in advance if and when tuition hikes are proposed,” Miller said. “I do want to note that Gary May did agree to this and did say yes to this demand. Admin also agreed to reach out to UCOP and inform them that Regents meeting scheduled on non-school days would be preferable, and live-streaming them, and that we shouldn’t have to go looking for those dates or locations. Admin did acknowledge this. We haven’t yet received an email that this has been discussed with UCOP.”

The agenda picked up where the last meeting’s agreements over student access to Regents meetings left off. Miller read off this agenda to attendees. UC administration has agreed to set up need-based transportation to the Regents meeting, and students who are interested must sign up using the UC Regents Meeting Registration Form Google Doc.

“UC Davis will bus and house students for free to any UC Regents meeting provided that students stay the whole day and provide a written account of the experience,” Milller said. “UC Davis should be responsible for advertising this program that would allow students to attend the UC regents meetings and confirming transportation to March 14 and 15 Regents meetings. Admin will advocate for these needs to legislators and show actual support for students and workers in a public way. This includes advocating to UCOP for salaries made equitable across UC workers, including impoloring them to reduce salary of chancellors to prevent another Katehi-level event [and] working with city government to establish rent control.”

According to Miller, administration has done some work to start conversations around food and housing insecurity, but could do more.

“Admin did commit to provide more affordable housing, but didn’t commit to a certain price, saying they would follow the market,” Miller said. ”They were willing to explore affordable and free food options, they are currently working on increasing availability of fruits and vegetables. Discounts including lowering prices at MU and Silo, increasing community gardening space and enhanced communication about food availability.”

Regarding re-evaluating the militarization of the UC Davis Police Department, Miller mentioned vagueness from the administration in the face of these demands at the last meeting and read off their language verbatim.  

“‘The police are looking at the way cops are being trained — no information has been given yet about exactly what that training is or the ways UC admin is looking into that,” Miller said. “The ‘are you opposed to lethal force’ question — it’s unclear what the answer actually is.”

Atkinson did not reply to the demilitarization demand. She did mention that three task forces have been set up following the last meeting on the issues of mental health, food insecurity and affordable housing. According to Atkinson, the task forces have already been chaired and that, “If you want to send follow-up feedback, you can contact those people.”

One student asked about student input on the task forces. Atkinson said a number of students were appointed to each task force, but did not have any specific names or other information about the process of that choosing.

Students in the meeting mentioned how the March 14 and 15 UC Regents meeting is scheduled for week 10 of Winter Quarter. The meeting is also located at the UCSF campus, creating a geographic barrier for UC Davis students. According to SDS, UC administration needs to advocate for accessible meeting times and locations with greater student input.

SDS member and first-year sociology major Aj Ballesteros called for more student control of the UC Regents’ meetings times and locations.

“The upcoming Regents meetings is in week 10 — that’s literally a week before finals,” Ballesteros said. “Also, the fact that it’s in the other half of the state makes it inaccessible to us distance-wise. If we don’t go, it’s because we aren’t able.”

The UC Regents are set to consider a tuition hike at the March meeting. Jara stated that it is imperative for as many students to go to the meeting as possible because tuition hikes increase food and housing insecurity, especially for those already suffering financially.

Becca Payne, a fourth-year studying technocultural studies talked about how, with limited spaces available for free transportation, students who need free transportation must be prioritized.

Atkinson was interested to hear input on how the administration should select students to go if not all students who want to go are able to. Payne urged Atkinson to ask May to send out an all-student email to inform students who may be unaware that the university is providing access to Regents meetings.

“Sounds like folks are interested in centering the centers and marginalized communities,” Atkinson said. “I want to make sure we’re on the same page for what that [outreach] email would include.”

Students talked about advocating to the centers that support marginalized communities and having students from the Cross Cultural Center go, especially in light of funding cuts to the CCC. Ballesteros talked about prioritizing students of color and students from disadvantaged socioeconomic statuses for free UC transportation and housing, because tuition hikes “disproportionately affect people from those groups.”

Payne talked about not wanting to make people self-select their labels and identities and mentioned an open space for free-form answers. Some students found issue in having to “prove your worthiness” in explaining their marginalization, and that certain students within certain marginalized groups should be prioritized without explaining any experience.

Payne said instead of asking about a student’s socioeconomic status, it might work to ask the student if they believe they are financially secure enough to not need university transportation.

At the first SDS-administration meeting attended by May, requirements for attending the Regents meeting were set forth, including documentation, having students take notes and keeping a list of students in attendance. Lewis said these requirements are condescending and that administration was asking for unnecessary proof that students went to the meeting. Lewis proposed a sign-in sheet and Atkinson said that was open for discussion.

“I understand wanting documentation — that students actually went to the [Regents] meeting, but what was proposed at the last meeting was more like a homework assignment,” Lewis said. “It seemed a little excessive.”

In reference to how May talked about students returning to campus with a “write up,” Jara proposed that students returning from Regents meetings could conduct a public forum at UC Davis to relay information to others who weren’t able to attend. Jara wants administration to focus more directly on student outreach — ‘‘I really want to stress emails,” they said.

According to Ballesteros, “an email isn’t enough.”

“It should be done, but I wanted to see it taken further,” Ballesteros said. “I think there should be awareness campaigns of what the Regents are and how they’re making decisions that affect us and we have no control over that.”

Kelechi Ohiri, a third-year organizational studies major and a student assistant to the chancellor, questioned the positionality of students in the room.  

“My question is: who are we centering when are doing this advocacy?” Ohiri asked. ”As the […] only black woman in this room — and no disrespect to anybody, but I’m just being honest —  I wonder, when we talk about these things in rooms where folks most directly affected by these problems are not present, we at least speak that and name that. I’m very aware of positionality.”  

According to Jara, the meeting was ultimately ineffective. Jara acknowledged the university’s willingness to bus students to Regents meetings at UCLA and UCSF but said that it is nonsensical for Regents meetings deciding on undergraduate and graduate policies to be held at UCSF, a campus without undergraduates.

“The real question is [whether] the administration will continue to work with us or give us just another town hall and no action after,” Jara said. “Students should be included in the process of the university — not just consulted from time to time.”

While Atkinson publicized new task forces, Jara believes that mental health care and food and housing security should be a right given to students automatically, not something that task forces must be created for.

“We wanted [all] the admin [present] and all we got was Sheri in a small room which is a repeated process of admin.,” Jara said via email. “Also, the task forces made by the admin only do so much (their job is to send a report not necessarily an action) and the task forces will split up the Students. Also it seems absurd that we have to make task forces for mental health, food and housing in the first place those things are human rights.”

Written by: Aaron Liss — campus@theaggie.org

Editor’s note: An earlier print edition of this article misattributed quotes to Becca Nelson. It has been correctly updated with attribution to Becca Payne.

PAB investigated five cases out of 18 reported complaints, lack of body-camera usage, problems with transparency

On Feb. 21 in the Garrison Room of the Memorial Union, Police Accountability Board members held a Winter Quarter public meeting and unpacked their 2016-2017 annual report. The board reviewed complaints and grievances concerning UC Davis police officers from the UC Davis campus and Sacramento UC Davis Medical Center campus. UC Davis police serve both locations.

In attendance was Megan Macklin, a program manager for the Office of Campus Community Relations, Staff Assembly member Peter Blando and alternate Academic Federation member Kara Carr. Wendy Lilliedoll, the director of investigations for the Office of Compliance and Policy, also serves on the Administrative Advisory Board of the PAB and was present at the meeting.

The board members talked about the lack of students and community members at their quarterly meeting — there were none at the Feb. 21 meeting — and discussed outreach on Facebook and rescheduling for more accessible times.

“We tend to get zero to two people as members of the public,” Lilliedoll said. “We tend not to have a lot of folks that have questions for us, but we certainly welcome that. It is open to anyone who comes in, and we don’t have a prepared agenda. We describe what we do, who we are. Last public meeting, we had the police chief here.”

At this meeting, the police chief was not present, nor were any police representatives.

Of the 18 complaints submitted to the PAB from June 2016 to June 2017, 17 cases were reviewed and five of the 17 were investigated. The 2016-2017 report concluded that 12 cases did not proceed through investigation, either because the “PAB received insufficient information to proceed (eight cases), or because they were dismissed as outside of PAB’s purview (four cases).”

According to the report, cases designated as “outside of PAB’s purview” may include cases where the UC policy overrides PAB’s scrutunity.

Five cases accused officers of excessive use of force. Two other complaints cited intimidation by police officer. Both were dismissed. Another complaint included in the annual report included assault by police officer, which was dropped for “insufficient evidence.”

One complaint currently under investigation is a case from Sacramento that reported an officer who allegedly failed to identify why the complainant was stopped and excessive force was used. Of the four excessive force complaints that have been completed, the two that were investigated found that allegations against the police were “unsustained” and “unfounded,” according to the annual report. The other two were not investigated due to lack of information.

The vast majority of complaints don’t proceed through investigation. Lilliedoll responded to whether it is a function of PAB to find complaints unfounded, or if a lack of evidence — such as camera footage — makes it impossible to proceed. According to Lilliedoll, some reports are also too vague, or may be anonymous. It also may, however, be due to the lengthy interviewing process that reporting parties must agree too.

“Typically, if there is a matter than should be investigated, we charge an investigation and it’s counted in those five,” Lilliedoll said. “Maybe, when the investigator goes to investigate, they’re unable to get the complainant to follow-up. That would be reported in the five. The other, the twelve, would be situations where someone submits a complaints to me, or a letter someone wrote to the police department, but they haven’t identified the officer involved. They say ‘I was treated badly,’ but they haven’t given me enough information. I write back and say I need more information, and then the person never responds.”

Another situation in which a complaint becomes dismissed is when “someone makes a complaint but the circumstance they allege is not a violation of policy,” which is when the PAB begins to explore the need for adjusting certain policies and protocols.

When asked if there are situations where there might be a problematic policy to analyze, Lilliedoll said that “if it comes back that the police officer was following their policy, the board might say, ‘OK, I know that’s considered to be accepted.’” However, Lilliedoll said they might ask UC Davis police if “maybe we should have a different standard on a college campus when we’re engaging with this particular population than you might have somewhere else.”

Blando said that investigating officers can be hindered by policy.

“Sometimes it’s a policy issue,” Blando said. “Based on the policy, well, they’re exonerated, because they followed exactly what the policy says they should do. But maybe you should take a look at this policy for review. The complaint is perhaps against the police department, their behavior, what they did, but if the police officer is following their policy or what their training says they should do, they’re following the proper procedures. It doesn’t look great, or there’s some concern about it, but the police officers is exonerated because they’re following their training and policy.”

In explaining the function of her department, Lilliedoll talked about how the Office of Compliance and Policy is a third party that investigates for the PAB.

“The trained investigators in my department have an opportunity to talk to both the person who made the complaint and the officer involved and any witnesses,” Lilliedoll said. “They also have the opportunity to correct relevant evidence — like to the extent that there is body camera footage or car camera footage, police reports, [and] any information that the witnesses or parties prevent.”

The PAB has asked UC Davis to make a decision regarding UC-wide body camera usage as part of recommendations included in the 2016-2017 annual report. UC campuses are currently not mandated to but are allowed to use body-cameras if the individual police officers buy one themselves.

The board members say UCOP may have provided a hurdle to the usage of body cameras at individual UC campus. UCOP has asked individual campuses not to make a decision regarding body camera usage, although some individual officers choose to use body cameras. There is no current law requiring this, which has led to accusations against the police regarding lack of transparency and abuse of power, specifically in the Picnic Day Five case and in the case of a UC Davis protester facing four charges.  

Currently, the “Police Chief has noted that the UCDPD is waiting for direction from a forthcoming UC systemwide policy,” according to the annual report. Lilliedoll stated that “there’s no specific policy in terms of who needs to be wearing it and when it needs to be activated” and stated the police department has “been asked by the system not to come up with an individual campus policy” regarding body-camera usage.

Key findings that the PAB addressed in the annual report included the “use of body camera footage” and “something that the PAB has returned to over and over again in terms of being useful in these situations to have a concrete policy that the police is expected to follow with respect to when body cameras are used.”

Another potential hurdle Lilliedoll alluded to was a lack of follow-up when a complainant doesn’t want to go through what the committee admits can be an arduous process.  According to Lilliedoll, the PAB won’t investigate a case when the complainant “[doesn’t] want to go through the formal investigation process, which involves sitting down with the investigator and going through this whole thing.”

Lilliedoll says sometimes they just wants the “PAB to know about it,” but they aren’t able to do anything. A full investigation would not allow whoever reported the complaint to remain anonymous, and can only take place if the complainant sits down with an investigator and goes through a questioning process.

When asked if students are perhaps not motivated to report due to the arduous investigation or emotional labor process, or if they feel like they deserve a level of anonymity, Lilliedoll replied saying they “need to have factual information about what actually happened.” Still, Lilliedoll said that they “aren’t trying to create an artificial hurdle to making complaints.”

“We don’t go out and poll and ask people if they want us to do a review,” Lilliedoll said. “If it doesn’t come to us, we don’t review it. Any member of the public that has a concern should come to us. There’s the website, or they can call us directly, or they can fill out a form and take it to the police department.”

Blando discussed how the lack of civilian access to police information can sometimes also be a problem regarding transparency and accountability.

“We haven’t bridged the gap between privacy issues, because there’s a lot of legal issues with the privacy and what we can disclose publicly at these sessions,” Blando said. “The police chief and the investigators have all the details, and [we don’t]. That’s the constraint, in terms of the PAB committee members and in talking to consistency group, we can’t say specifics.”

Written by: Aaron Liss — campus@theaggie.org