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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Regents' Conflict Avoidance Strategies May (Soon) Come to an End

The Regents have been following a conflict avoidance strategy on the issue of "social" divestment of university funds.  In the case of fossil fuel divestment, they followed the time-honored delaying strategy of forming a committee to study the issue.  Only one problem: Such committees eventually have to report something or decide something.  At the upcoming July Regents meeting, there will likely be at least be student demands for info on the committee's progress.

On anti-Israel divestment, the Regents sought "balance" by previously appointing a student Regent who was for such divestment and then appointing, as her successor, a student who was opposed.  That strategy, too, may unravel.  From the Daily Bruin:

UCSA investigates allegations about student regent-designate Avi Oved

On Saturday, the University of California Student Association called for an emergency meeting in the upcoming days to discuss whether Avi Oved, a student regent-designate nominee for the UC Board of Regents, submitted incomplete campaign finance reports when he ran for a UCLA undergraduate student government position in 2013.  In a UCSA Board of Directors meeting Saturday, Amal Ali, last year’s president of Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Riverside claimed Oved and other members of the Bruins United slate sent an email in 2013 thanking Adam Milstein, a prominent supporter of pro-Israel organizations, for donating to the slate. Ali alleged that Oved did not report the donation in his campaign finance reports for the election... (Oved) was nominated by a committee of UC regents in May to serve as the nonvoting student regent-designate for 2014-2015 and as the student regent for 2015-2016. The UC Board of Regents is set to confirm Oved’s nomination during its July meeting at UC San Francisco...


Some background from earlier postings:

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