Before leaving office, Gov. Schwarzenegger nominated David Crane to be a UC Regent. Regents are supposed to be selected through consultation with an 11 member advisory committee and approved by the Legislature. Our Sacramento contacts told us the nomination was “dead in the water.” But then Crane was listed as a Regent on the UC Regents webage.
On February 27th, Crane wrote an op-ed in the SF Chronicle coming out against public unions, prompted by the Wisconsin and Ohio controversy. It was called “Should public employees have collective bargaining?”:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/27/IN5N1HUAMS.DTL
The outcry was immediate, including a petition begun by the Berkeley
Faculty Association against having Crane confirmed:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43586.html
And a strong article about Crane in the San Francisco Bay Guardian:
http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/03/07/keep-david-crane-away-your-government
Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco held a rally to oppose Crane at UCSF on March 4th. Three distinguished faculty members of CUCFA attended the rally, and their speeches were featured in the excellent 20 min. video posted on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUhtXoI0_kw
CUCFA sent a letter to Diane M. Griffiths, the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the UC Regents, noting that Schwarzenegger’s nomination of Crane violated article 9, sections 9a and 9e of the California Constitution:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_9
And that UCOP’s listing of Crane as a Regent was a violation of Regent’s bylaws 5.1.a and 5.1.e:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/bylaws/bl5.html
We also questioned Crane’s use of the UC Regent title in his op-ed, and asked UCOP if Crane was planning to attend the upcoming Regents’ meeting, and if so in what capacity. See CUCFA’s full letter at:
http://cucfa.org/news/2011_mar8.php
Then the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an editorial that appears to have been more about Yee’s candidacy in San Francisco’s upcoming mayoral race than Crane’s suitability as a Regent, but which ended with a call to confirm Crane:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/08/EDVD1I5KVO.DTL
CUCFA President Robert Meister wrote a response to the Chronicle that we hope they will publish as an op-ed (he also produced a shorter version for use as a letter to the editor):
http://cucfa.org/news/2011_mar10.php
The San Francisco Bay Guardian and other media outlets published responses to the Chronicle’s editorial. A few examples:
http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/03/09/david-crane-just-another-kochhead
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=8967
On March 11th, CUCFA sent a letter to Governor Brown, asking him to withdraw Crane’s nomination to the Board of Regents, and urging him to instead nominate a state leader who both respects – and has the respect of – all of the university’s constituencies. We backed that letter up with the 1,275 UC faculty and staff signatures we had gathered to that point (see the gopetition link above). We sent a similar letter to Senator Steinberg and the other members of the Senate Rules Committee, asking them to hold a confirmation hearing at which they reject Crane.
CUCFA and the DFA will continue to follow this issue as we truly feel, for all the reasons outlined in Robert Meister’s letter linked to above, that the appointment of Crane as a UC Regent would be terrible for UC.