Free Republic

New York will allow some illegal immigrants to teach and practice medicine throughout the state beginning June 1, the Associated Press reported. The state’s licensing board — the Board of Regents — voted Tuesday to accept applications from people with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. …

About 25 members of the pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary -- also known as BAMN - broke out with chants of "Minority enrollment's been going down, open it up or we'll shut it down" and "We don't need another committee, open it up to Detroit city," during the University of Michigan's Board of Regents meeting Thursday afternoon. The chants quickly turned physical as the protester pressed forward toward the regents. Security responded and the group continued to press forward as multiple protesters were forced to the ground after refusing to back down and move their protest out of...

A proposal to limit embryonic stem cell research at the University of Nebraska failed to win the approval of the NU Board of Regents Friday, a critical verdict that came after one regent broke ranks with his pro-life colleagues to cast the deciding vote. Lincoln Regent Jim McClurg's about-face split the regents' vote 4-4, stalling the proposal and opening the door to expanded research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Supporters of embryonic stem cell research hailed the vote as a hallmark opportunity for NU to play a key role in lifesaving work. The vote also helps counter a...

Even though he didn't get a majority for re-election last year, Gov. Rick Perry's 39 percent was ahead of everybody else. And so he's now in a term that lasts into 2011. In the eyes of some of his detractors in the blogosphere, that's too long. Political activist Linda Curtis has started a website calling on legislators in 2009 to impeach the governor (www.impeachperry.indytexans.org/). That's a pretty rash idea. But since Texas doesn't allow for recall elections, like the one that nailed California Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, Texans' only way to toss Perry out before the 2010 election...

They are one of California's most influential political couples: four-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blum, a wealthy businessman, philanthropist and behind-the-scenes political advisor. For decades, first as San Francisco mayor and then as senator, Feinstein has had the public persona while Blum has operated in the background. Now, at 71, Blum has stepped into the limelight to take over as chairman of the University of California Board of Regents. --snip-- Blum was appointed to a 12-year term on the 26-member board in 2002 by then-Gov. Gray Davis, to whom Blum and his companies had given more than...

The University of California's Board of Regents created three high-ranking jobs to supervise the system's troubled finances Thursday, the same day it agreed to let about 60 top executives keep some $1 million in extra compensation they weren't supposed to get. The regents retroactively approved the raises and other perks, most of which audits had revealed were obtained by the president's office without going through the proper channels. Three separate audits - performed by the Bureau of State Audits, an outside firm and the university's internal auditor - were launched after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that executives were getting...

An undisclosed number of UC executives will share $770,000 in pay raises to be discussed today behind closed doors by a key committee of the University of California Board of Regents. It will be the second round of pay hikes for some of the senior managers, who got an average 2.5 percent annual salary boost in November. ... --snip-- The names of those in line for the raises were not disclosed. ... --snip-- Because UC officials refused to release specifics on the pay package, it is unclear exactly how many of the university system's 300 top executives -- chancellors, vice...

The University of California has issued thousands of low-interest home loans to executives, faculty members and other selected employees but has refused to reveal who received the money. That includes an unidentified UC Berkeley professor who received a $250,000 home loan at one-half of 1 percent interest a year -- far less interest than any bank would demand. ... --snip-- The university provided data showing there are nearly 2,000 active loans totaling $702 million but cited employee confidentiality in refusing to identify the recipients. In dozens of cases, UC wouldn't even reveal the titles of people who received the loans....

University of California officials have formed search committees for three new administrative posts to help improve fiscal oversight and management following a compensation controversy. The new positions are a chief operating officer and a chief financial officer who will oversee non-academic functions within the UC Office of the President and a compliance officer who will ensure that university practices and policies are followed. A number of reviews into UC pay practices found that administrators routinely circumvented or ignored policies in order to secure better salary deals for top executives. Salary ranges for the jobs are still being finalized, a university...

SAN FRANCISCO - University of California President Robert Dynes gets to keep his job, butthe Board of Regents pledged Thursday to watch him more closely after outrage about millions of dollars in overpayments to top administrators that prompted calls for his resignation. The regents met in closed session for much of Thursday morning, discussing the situation with Dynes, before announcing their decision to allow him to stay. They pledged to increase their oversight of UC pay practices and policies. Dynes has been under fire since last fall, when reports emerged saying that UC administrators withheld information from regents and the...

University of California President Robert C. Dynes said Wednesday "overactive secrecy," helped create a situation where millions in perks were quietly doled out to top executives. Fallout over the extra compensation intensified with some calling for Dynes to resign. But it was unclear whether he had lost the confidence of UC's governing Board of Regents the only people with the authority to fire him. Regents met behind closed doors Wednesday to discuss Dynes' role in approving violations of UC pay policies and board Chairman Gerald Parsky said he would have no comment on UC leadership until Thursday. Concerns about how...

The Chronicle has notified the University of California that it will ask an Alameda County judge today to order a UC Board of Regents committee to meet in public next week when it votes on pay proposals for high-ranking officials, according to the newspaper's lawyers. In a suit to be filed in Superior Court, The Chronicle argues that a closed-door committee meeting scheduled next Wednesday violates the state's open-meeting laws. The newspaper's lawyers plan to ask for a court order at a hearing today to require a public session. --snip-- In response, the university's general counsel, James Holst, said the...

The state Legislature's legal adviser says the University of California regents have violated state open-meeting laws by voting behind closed doors on executive pay packages. In a 12-page opinion, the Office of Legislative Counsel wrote that the state Education Code requires regents' committees to meet in public whenever they take action on compensation proposals involving the president, chancellors and certain other top executives. The regents have held at least a dozen such meetings in private during the past five years, UC records show. --snip-- "It is our opinion that a standing committee of the Board of Regents of the University...

For the last decade, University of California leaders systematically failed to disclose to UC's governing board the details of pay packages and perquisites granted to senior executives, despite policies requiring such disclosure, according to an audit released Monday. .... At UCLA on Monday, Dynes noted that the situation was especially troubling in light of a similar controversy more than a decade ago, when UC was criticized for excessive compensation to departing executives. .... The report noted about $23,000 in undisclosed expenses for Dynes [the current UC president .... The report also noted that some compensation for a number of employees,...

OAKLAND - The University of California gave most of its top executives extra bonuses, car allowances or other compensation that wasn't approved by the governing board of regents, according to a report presented today by the university's outside auditors. In fact, the audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the UC system gave more than two-thirds of its top managers extra pay or benefits as an exception to university policies or procedures without approval from the regents. And much of that pay was never disclosed to the public as required by the regents' policies. While UC's Office of the President was supposed...

The University of California's procedures for reporting executive pay are "wholly unacceptable" and must be overhauled, a task force said Thursday. More financial oversight and public accountability is needed after reports showed UC gave executives millions in bonuses and other perks while student fees were raised to offset funding cutbacks, according to findings presented to UC's governing Board of Regents. The report pointed to a university culture of secrecy, further complicated by vague policies and lack of oversight. The report blamed President Robert C. Dynes and other leaders for failing repeatedly to fully disclose executive packages to regents and said...

The University of California's Board of Regents last week abrogated its oversight duties by granting near autonomy to the UC president for setting the salaries of top executives. The taxpayers -- and students who have faced tuition hikes for five straight years -- deserve better. UC President Robert Dynes has gained the authority to grant up to 7.5 percent annual raises to most of the 400 executives throughout the 10-campus system who make between $117,000 and now, potentially, $887,000 a year. An analysis in The Sacramento Bee showed that, for instance, the chief executive officer at UC Davis Medical Center,...

San Diego -- The University of California, under fire for its pay practices, gave final approval Thursday to two proposals to overhaul the way it hands out compensation and doled out a new round of increases for managers. The university Board of Regents unanimously approved a plan that gives UC President Robert Dynes discretion to increase hundreds of executives' pay within large salary bands, ... --snip-- The regents also endorsed a plan to ban administrators from negotiating severance agreements worth more than $100,000 without the regents' approval. The board acted one month after The Chronicle reported that UC had secretly...

Ward Connerly, American Civil Rights Institute chairman, claimed at a lecture on campus Wednesday that affirmative action is a form of racism and is immoral. "We have to get beyond the point where we stop making excuses and presume black and Hispanic students just can't make it without affirmative action," Connerly said. "Affirmative action is terribly demoralizing." Affirmative action attracted attention recently when the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed two cases involving the University of Michigan's admissions standards. Michigan, along with other universities around the nation, awards applicants "pluses" or "points" if they are members of "underrepresented" ethnic or racial...