[Online exclusive] Chancellor Carnesale weighs in on UCLA’s current issues

Chancellor Albert Carnesale said Friday that he had a special
place in his heart for the Stanford men’s basketball team
““ that, like UCLA, the Palo Alto-based institution operates
under the constraints of admitting athletes who must also excel as
students.

Thus, he said, seeing such a program find success is especially
remarkable, and he hinted at hopes that the Bruins would be in a
similar position next year.

The observation was among the lighter notes of a quarterly press
conference the chancellor held with the Daily Bruin.

Carnesale addressed some of the most pressing issues facing the
campus, including state budget cuts, free speech issues, student
group funding and the Willed Body Program scandal at the UCLA
Medical Center.

His silent rooting for Stanford can be likened to the general
budgetary goals of the University of California ““ they have
been dashed, just like the Cardinal’s tournament hopes. (They
lost to Alabama on Saturday.)

The governor’s January budget proposal suggested
enrollment restrictions and program cuts to ensure that the UC does
its part in helping the state trim down its spending. But as
recently as last week, UC officials said even if those adjustments
were made, the system could still be facing a shortfall of hundreds
of millions of dollars in necessary funding.

The chancellor framed his hopes for the university budget by
describing one point as being both harmful and helpful:

“From all that I can tell … there was no involvement by
the University of California,” which Carnesale said was both
the good and bad news of the situation.

“So, really, (budget) negotiations started after the
governor’s first proposal,” he said, adding that the
governor’s budget proposal did not reflect UC input on the
matter, since there was none.

Carnesale also said shrinking contributions from the state have
hampered the UC’s ability to compete with private
universities that have large endowments to draw from.

“The gap’s getting too big,” he said.
“We have to rethink: Can we continue to provide a University
of California … with a very low sticker price?”

There have also been a few notable issues regarding free speech
that have arisen both with the UC Board of Regents and on the UCLA
campus.

Regents Chairman John Moores was censured by the board last week
for criticizing UC admissions policy days before a task force
released its report on the same policy.

Locally, the Bruin Republicans campaigned against the student
group MEChA. The situation has had a pervasive presence on campus
over the past few weeks.

In describing both situations, Carnesale re-established his
steadfast commitment to protecting free expression in the
university atmosphere.

“You bend over backwards, backwards, backwards to defend
an individual’s right to say whatever they’d like to
say,” he said.

“When people are threatened and literally not safe, that
goes beyond the line,” he said. “I lean invariably to
(allow) free speech, as long as literally no one’s harmed.
… At a university, more so than society at large, free speech is
crucial.

“We don’t get to decide” what free speech is
productive or unproductive, he added.

The chancellor also addressed a student council debate over
whether all student groups should be eligible for council funding
that is derived from compulsory student fees.

“My ideal would be that the students handle it … and
it’s consistent with the rules … which means that there
will be some students who will be unhappy,” he said.
“No matter what you do, there are perceived winners and
losers.”

Lastly, Carnesale discussed what needed to be done about a
scandal at the UCLA Medical Center involving body parts from
donated cadavers being sold illegally for profit.

He said there will be greater scrutiny on incoming personnel in
the future, with emphasis on those entrusted with sensitive
responsibilities. He met with former California Gov. George
Deukmejian, who will oversee the UCLA program’s reform, on
Friday.

He also pointed out that problems with willed body programs are
shared throughout the country.

“It’s a difficult thing to do right,” he said.
“There’s actually remarkably little
regulation.”

Carnesale added that the reputation of the medical center, as
well as the entire university, is at stake in the
investigation.