GSA president publicizes report of allegations against Chancellor Gene Block
Zak Fisher, the Graduate Students Association president, held a press conference Thursday to address a report he filed against Chancellor Gene Block, alleging Block violated the Student Fee Advisory Committee bylaws and charter. (James Schaap/Daily Bruin)
By Inga Hwang
Oct. 7, 2019 12:42 a.m.
The president of the Graduate Students Association alleged Chancellor Gene Block violated the UCLA Student Fee Advisory Committee bylaws and charter in a report filed to an office of the University of California.
Zak Fisher, a law student and former member of the SFAC, filed a report with the UC Office of the Investigator on Sept. 26. The report alleges Block postponed his support of an amendment to the SFAC bylaws after the change had been put into effect without taking measures required by its bylaws and charter.
Block postponed his support of the amendment via letter to the committee. Fisher said he believes SFAC, which is responsible for making recommendations to the chancellor for student fee revenue allocations, acted as though the amendment had been revoked between 2017 and 2019 because of Block’s letter.
The bylaw amendment was intended to reduce conflicts of interest and required students with financial connections to organizations receiving funding through SFAC allocations to recuse themselves during initial deliberations.
The bylaw was passed by an SFAC supermajority of 9 to 3 in 2017.
According to Fisher’s report, Block sent the letter to notify SFAC on Aug. 29, 2017, 84 days after the committee vote. According to the SFAC bylaws and charter, the chancellor cannot send bylaw amendments back to SFAC for review outside of the 14-day time limit and is required to meet with a quorum of SFAC members to discuss the amendment within those two weeks.
Fisher said he thinks the Community Programs Office benefited before the language was reinstated. The CPO requested $844,960 for the 2019-2020 academic year, according to SFAC documents.
He added that multiple students on SFAC, including the 2017-2018 and the 2018-2019 SFAC chairs, had financial employee-employer relationships with the CPO.
Fisher said he believes SFAC allocations between 2017 and 2019 were tainted because they lacked protections against conflicts of interest.
“It’s impossible to say with certainty what the extent of the practical effects of this are,” Fisher said. “But it’s also sure … those discussions would have been different, and that certain individuals would have had to recuse themselves from certain conversations.”
Fisher held a public conference Thursday to discuss the report.
Fisher said he did not submit the report promptly after Block sent the letter to SFAC because he wanted to confirm Block had not sought a meeting with SFAC to discuss the amendment.
Fisher said he submitted his report after confirming Block had not sought the meeting because he feels obligated as GSA president to protect student interests through enforcing ethical, legitimate and compliant allocations of student fees.
“It’s not up to me to decide whether there was gross negligence or gross incompetence,” Fisher said. “But it’s beholden on all of us as community members when we suspect there might be gross negligence or gross incompetence to report those facts.”
Christian Mason, a biomathematics graduate student who attended the conference, said he supports Fisher’s decision to make his report public because he believes transparency in student government and fee allocation is valuable to students.
Mason added he attended Fisher’s conference because he felt confused as to why Block and his staff seemed unconcerned about the allegations, as documents included in the report may prove the chancellor violated SFAC bylaws.
Mason was the sole nonpress attendee of the public conference, which was also livestreamed on the GSA Facebook page.
JP Santos, GSA vice president of external affairs, said he supports Fisher’s report because he hopes to learn why Block withdrew support from the amendment.
“You don’t want people that are not impartial in an SFAC committee,” Santos said. “Why would you want to weaken conflict of interest verbiage in SFAC rules?”
Santos added he thinks the committee should not have assumed the amendment was repealed following Block’s letter.
“It’s disconcerting that the committee just followed along and acted by the will of the chancellor,” Santos said.
In addition to Block, Fisher’s report names 2018-2019 SFAC advisor Marilyn Alkin; UCLA Student Organizations, Leadership and Engagement Director Mike Cohn; and Vice Chancellor of student affairs Monroe Gorden Jr.
According to Fisher’s report, these administrators were defensive upon hearing Fisher’s concerns. The report also stated that Block offered to meet with SFAC regarding the amendment, but the meeting has not occurred despite requests made to Alkin, Gorden and Cohn.
UCLA spokesperson Ricardo Vazquez said in a statement that Block wrote Fisher a letter stating he was unable to respond to the SFAC recommendation promptly because of his obligations as UCLA’s chief executive.
Vazquez added that Block responded to the SFAC bylaw change after the committee vote, and referred the recommendation back to the committee for further review.
Fisher said he feels disappointed that Block did not meet with SFAC before postponing the bylaw amendment.
“That, to me, shows disrespect towards the process and disrespect towards students because that process is all about making sure that everyone is held accountable for the fees that we all pay,” Fisher said.
