Whether to Fight or Not — that is the question for the University of California as it faces Trump’s attacks, the first on a major public multi-campus university system
September 17 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Free
Presenter
John Aubrey Douglass, Senior Research Fellow and Research Professor, Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE), Goldman School of Public Policy, at the University of California, Berkeley.
Location
This is a hybrid event.
Introduction
What may determine the fate of America’s public research universities is whether the University of California will fight in the courts the Trump administration’s demand for a $1 billion “fine” for disingenuous charges of antisemitism and supposed violations of Trump’s agenda at UCLA.
Paying the “fine” that Trump personally and magically conjured will then release millions of research funding to UCLA impounded by the White House — at least that is the promise from a mercurial Trump administration. Any decision about UCLA affects the entire ten campus system and must involve Governor Gavin Newsom. Newsom has correctly identified Trump’s demands as “extortion,” has emerged one of Trump’s most vocal critics, and who has presidential ambitions.
UC’s choice will influence the response of other major public universities when they are in the frying pan of Trump’s autocratic impulses. The path UC takes may prove more important than the Harvard case as it involves the nation’s most prestigious public multi-campus university system in a state with the 4th largest economy in the world. The political pressure and stakes are huge for UC’s Board of Regents, a new UCwide president, the campus chancellors and faculty leaders — and the state of California.
I will discuss the context of this dilemma, and provide an update to my previous Substack article on the pros and cons of UC negotiating a deal or fighting the Trump administration, and possibly the outcome. UC has until September 2 to respond to White House demands.
Registration
Click here to register.
About the presenter
John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow — Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California – Berkeley. He is the author of Neo-Nationalism and Universities (Johns Hopkins Univeristy Press 2021), Envisioning the Asian New Flagship University: Its Past and Vital Future (with John Hawkins, Berkeley Public Policy Press and the East-West Center 2017) The New Flagship University: Changing the Paradigm from Global Ranking to National Relevancy (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), The Conditions for Admissions(link is external) (Stanford Press 2007), The California Idea and American Higher Education(link is external) (Stanford University Press, 2000; published in Chinese in 2008), and Globalization’s Muse: Universities and Higher Education Systems in a Changing World(link is external)(Public Policy Press, 2009). Among the research projects he co-founded is the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium – a group of major research universities in the US and internationally, with members in China, Brazil, South Africa, the Netherlands and Russia. He is also the editor of the Center’s Research and Occasional Paper Series (ROPS), sits on the editorial board of international higher education journals in the UK, China, and Russia, and serves on the international advisory boards of a number of higher education institutes.
He has been a Visiting Professor at Amsterdam University College (a unit of the University of Amsterdam and Vrije University of Amsterdam), at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brazil), at Sciences Po (Paris) and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (OxCHEPS).
Scholarly publications include articles in Higher Education, the European Journal of Education Higher Education Quarterly, the Journal of California Politics and Policy, Higher Education Policy and Management (OECD), Higher Education Policy (journal of the IAU), BOOM (a journal on California politics and culture), Perspectives (UK), Change Magazine, California Monthly, Minerva,The Journal of Policy History, History of Education Quarterly, andThe American Behavioral Scientists.
Current research interests are focused on comparative international higher education, including the influence of globalization, the role of universities in economic development, science policy as a component of national and multinational economic policy, strategic issues related to developing mass higher education, and studies related the SERU Consortium survey data that assesses the student experience in major research universities.
He also serves as a consultant on issues related to institutional strategic planning, access and academic program quality assurance. Prior to joining CSHE and Berkeley, he served as the chief policy analyst for the University of California’s Systemwide Academic Senate and held teaching and research positions at the University of California – Santa Barbara campus.