UC PETITION - STOP THE CUTS!

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The Governor and the State Legislature have cut the University of California's General Fund since 1990 to date by 40%. The new proposal is to cut another 20%. The UC President’s response so far has been to request emergency financial powers for himself (Regents J1) and to cut state-funded employee pay from 4% to 10% via furloughs. These proposed cuts will severely degrade the quality of the University of California. They constitute a direct attack on the educational future of California’s multiracial population whose educational attainment has already declined precipitously in the wake of two previous rounds of major cuts. The new cuts pose a fatal threat to the University’s ability to remain a world-class institution. The Regents’ and the UC President’s passivity has contributed to the disastrous decline of educational funding in California, to the state’s current dismal educational level, and to its diminished economic future.

In light of all this, We, the undersigned, demand that the Regents of the University of California:

1. Implement an immediate freeze on all proposed cuts until alternatives can be openly considered at the September 2009 Regents Meeting.
2. Thoroughly investigate alternatives to the proposed cuts in services with a full report due at the Regents meeting in September 2009.
3. Immediately initiate a University-wide open dialogue on how the cuts will affect the quality of education, recruitment of faculty and staff, and the future of the University of California itself.
4. Begin concerted lobbying of the Legislature and Governor’s Office to stop defunding public education and to independently investigate prevailing status quo assumptions about the state of California’s economy.
5. Produce a five-year plan that aims to restore UC quality and integrity. Such a plan should protect and nurture human capital by refusing worker layoffs and pay cuts in a system where the vast majority of employees already lag behind their peers in cost of living standards.