Editorial: UC Regents chairman ignores real problems

For the first time in its modern history, the University of
California will not enroll all high school graduates who meet
eligibility criteria.

But John Moores seems unconcerned about the unprecedented
enrollment restrictions; the UC Board of Regents chairman’s
priorities lie elsewhere.

Moores is continuing his unilateral attack on the
university’s comprehensive review admissions policy, now
requesting an audit by an outside firm. He’s obsessed with
the fact a few students from disadvantaged backgrounds may be
getting into college with lower-than-typical SAT scores.

A quote Moores gave to the Los Angeles Times reveals his
disturbing perspective: “I’m fairly indifferent about
college for a lot of kids … I don’t think it’s all
that important.”

Of course Moores would not care about enrollment cuts if college
doesn’t even matter anyway.

And so, at a time when the university lacks the funding to
enroll the proper number of students, Moores’ focus is on
keeping students out, not bringing them in.

Moores’ colleagues recently censured him for claiming
(with weak evidence) in a Fortune magazine piece that the
university was “thwarting” the law by using affirmative
action.

Moores feels the censure was unfair, saying all he wants is for
admissions policies to be more transparent and in compliance with
state law. Seems reasonable, right?

It’s not that simple. Aside from the fact Moores has
managed to insult everyone from students to Berkeley’s
chancellor with his brash style, Moores’ campaign against the
admissions policy utterly fails to address the university’s
real problems.

If Moores would like to actually help the university, he should
focus on what the faculty at one of its two flagship campuses are
worried about: money.

In a letter to UCLA’s top two administrators last week,
the department heads of the UCLA College decried the proposed 40
percent increase in graduate student fees and called for adequate
funding to recruit and retain top Ph.D candidates.

When concerns about the university’s future inability to
attract quality graduate students are added to enrollment
restrictions for undergraduates, the sum is an admissions crisis.
The university’s very purpose is in jeopardy.

But Moores does not use his bully-pulpit as the Regents’
chairman (and an enormously wealthy and powerful businessman) to
lobby the government for more funding. Instead, he insults the
university ““ and even the value of a college education. He
gives the UC a black eye when it needs his leadership most.

Moores has long had a pet agenda to fight affirmative action
(real or perceived). Though appointed by Democratic Gov. Gray
Davis, Moores held a fundraiser for Republican Ward
Connerly’s failed ballot initiative that would have banned
race data collection.

Moores’ preoccupation with eliminating affirmative action
is hurting his ability to help solve real university problems. All
this suggests that the UC does not have a leader as the chair of
its governing board; it has an opportunist.