Governor wrong to cut UC labor institute

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Keyishian v. Board
of Regents, affirmed that “our Nation is deeply committed to
safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to
all of us, and not merely to the teachers concerned, (and) that the
vigilant protection of constitutional freedom is nowhere more vital
than in the community of American schools.” Today, more than
three decades later, the freedom the Supreme Court so forcefully
upheld is under attack ““ right here in the University of
California.

On Dec. 18 2003, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his executive
power to bypass the state Legislature, enacting $149 million in
cuts to state programs. Among the unfortunate programs losing
funding was the Institute for Labor and Employment.

The Institute for Labor and Employment is a multi-campus
research unit for labor research at the UC. Each year, the
institute devotes approximately $1.5 million in direct grants to
faculty and graduate students on all nine UC campuses. Over the
past four years, 132 faculty members and 136 graduate students have
been awarded approximately $5 million in research grants.

The institute’s other accomplishments include helping
create a general education cluster and a labor studies minor, in
which hundreds of students have participated.

The UC is a prolific research university, and the Institute for
Labor and Employment is only one out of its hundreds of research
units. But, it was also the only research unit that completely lost
its funding when the governor unilaterally made the midyear budget
reductions.

H.D. Palmer, the spokesman for the governor’s Department
of Finance, said the cut was part of Schwarzenegger’s effort
to resolve the state’s budget problems and was not intended
to reflect any ideological slant. But the funding of the institute
constitutes a mere 0.14 percent of the UC budget and 0.004 percent
of the overall California budget.

Not surprisingly, the governor, proposed to completely eliminate
the institute’s funding for the 2004-2005 fiscal year, while
other UC research funding received only a 5 percent reduction
across the board.

There can be little doubt the termination of the institute is
politically motivated. Business interests, led by the Associated
Builders and Contractors, have been targeting the Institute for
Labor and Employment since it conducted a study in 2001 of
“project labor agreements,” in which wages, benefits
and union status are determined before the inception of major
construction projects. Project labor agreements hamper the use of
non-union labor in construction.

Businesses often argue against the funding of labor studies
programs because unions are “private organizations.”
David Bacon refuted this point in an article in The Nation, noting
that “encouraging collective bargaining has been public
policy since 1936,” with the passage of the National Labor
Relations Act.

Rationalizing the elimination of the ILE on the basis that its
funding supports private interests is preposterous. After all,
there are probably very few, if any, business programs that do not
take for granted the need to make profits and to network with the
business community.

Furthermore, most business schools seek to place their students
in firms. But when public money goes to support academic programs
that study so-called “private interests” (that, again,
have been encouraged under the National Labor Relations Act for
almost seven decades) business interests cry foul.

Let us not forget that the issue of paramount importance here is
academic freedom. Political interests, progressive or conservative,
should not meddle in the research and academic mission of the
UC.

I am here neither to prove the validity of ILE’s research,
nor to espouse the ideas the institute’s research and
publications may convey. As a student at UCLA, I am concerned about
the role politics play in my education.

If the governor’s proposed budget is signed into law, the
ILE will be effectively terminated.

Students who want to participate in the summer internship
program or to engage in research on labor relations will have to
pursue other academic disciplines.

A state executive should not be able to delineate what students
can study. Schwarzenegger’s termination of the ILE is wrong,
unfair and, above all, un-American.

Not only did the governor’s unilateral action constitute a
violation of academic freedom, it also created a hostile
environment that discouraged equal access to education.

By picking one out of hundreds of research units to terminate,
Schwarzenegger destroyed the academic opportunities of certain
students and effectively denied them equal access to the same
education that their peers enjoy.

As students of one of the greatest universities in the world,
and as future citizens of the free world, we cannot let this
blatant attack on equality in access and academic freedom
stand.

We must not remain complacent in the hope that there will be no
future attacks on our freedom or future cuts ““ in the
disguise of budgetary necessities ““ to the discipline in
which we harbor great interests.

By resisting the termination of the ILE, we will be fighting,
not just for the institute, but for the rights of students to
pursue the academic paths of their own choosing.

We will be fighting, not just for the survival of labor studies,
but for the rights of the faculty to freely fulfill the research
mission of this university.

And above all, we will be standing up for the freedoms that
serve as the foundation of this country.

Tseng is a second-year political science student.