• Login

• RecentChanges
• FindPage
• HelpContents
• MeetTheRegents

Who Runs the University? Who are the Regents?

The UC has long been dominated by highly connected, wealthy California business people, political insiders, and lawyers appointed by the Governor as “Regents” who manage the entire UC system during their 12 year term, including the 3 national labs. 19 Regents are appointed, and 7 are “ex officio” members (including public officials, the Governor, UC President, and one student ) (see http://www.ucop.edu ). Although the CA constitution states “The university shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom in the appointment of its regents,” deep favoritism and financial ties pervade Governors’ choices of Regents:

- Finance & Real Estate - Regent Russel Gould is Vice President of Wachovia, one of the country’s largest banks, holding $billions of loans from millions of students. Gould was appointed Regent by Gov. Schwarzenegger after he advised and campaigned for Schwarzenegger (Gould was also a top choice to be the Gov’s chief of staff).

Regent Judith Hopkinson gave $145,000 to Gov. Davis (her company Ameriquest Capital specializes in predatory home mortgages and gave $1.5 million to Schwarzenegger). Oh, and real estate magnate and Democrat insider George Marcus gave $215,000 to Gov. Davis before the Gov appointed him a Regent.

- Media - Regent Sherry Lansing was CEO of Paramouunt Pictures for 12 years.

Regent Norman Pattiz controls America’s largest radio network – he gave $300,000 to Gov. Davis who appointed him Regent.

Regent Monica Lozano is VP of Impremedia, which controls 3/4ths of the Spanish-language news market in the US.

- Military & Construction - Regent Eddie Island was vice president for McDonnell Douglas, a major defense contractor that makes fighter jets, Apache helicopters, and other war tackle.

Regent Richard Blum has been milking us for years to feed his construction companies and five mansions. His wife, Diane Feinstein, on the Senate Subcommittee on Military Construction Appropriations gave his URS and Perini corporations juicy contracts to further trash Iraq - only outdone by Blum himself once he was appointed to the Board of Regents (after donating $75,000 to Gov. Davis). He has given his pet companies hundreds of millions in unusual contracts, one of which is to level the Memorial Oaks Grove that students have been protecting for over a year (see treesit). After student protest he divetested from URS and threw $25 million at a hastily convened poverty research center – see the children love Blum, he’s a good guy!

- Partisian Political Insiders - Regent Gerald Parsky is an investment banker and influential Republican, and was Bush’s main man in California, chairing the 2000 and 2004 CA Bush election committees. Parsky tapped his connections with the state’s wealthy republican donors, and he also gave $74,000 to Gov. Wilson before the Gov appointed him as Regent. Shortly after Parksy became a regent, he gave a $250,000 no-bid contract to a Republican buddy that had just donated $80,000 to Bush.

Regent Paul Wachter is Schwarzenegger’s money-man. Before Schwarzenegger’s run for Governor the two were business partners. Wachter currently manages the blind trust into which all of Schwarzenegger’s investments were liquidated when he became governor. Given Wachter and Schwarzenegger’s buddy-buddy relationship it’s hard to see how Wachter acts as an independent disinterested manager of the governor’s assets. Schwarzenegger’s financial holdings were briefly and partially disclosed during the recall campaign in 2003. They revealed a financial empire of tens of millions of dollars invested in securities, private equity funds and over 100 business ventures, many in partnership with Wachter.

UC conflict-of-interest coordinators review the regents’ statements of economic interests, which are required by the Political Reform Act of 1974 and can be viewed by making written public-records requests to UC offices in Oakland.

UC holds about $72 billion in its UC Retirement Plan, General Endowment Pool, and the Short Term Investment Pool. This UC money is heavily invested in the world's largest corporations, most irresponsible businesses, and major weapons manufacturers. Most infamous were investments (>$3 billion) in companies doing business with the South African Apartheid government in the 1980s [see the film “From Berkeley to Soweto”]. The UC also once held and lost $325.5 million in pension and endowment funds in telecom giant and mega-fraud MCI WorldCom Inc. Under student pressure to end state-sponsored genocide in Darfur, the University is currently liquidating investments in nine companies doing business with Sudan, though it’s also taking BP’s $500 million (BP collaborates with genocide supporting companies like PetroChina). See the Responsible Endowment Coalition: www.endowmentethics.org

Meet the Regents {old}

The Regents of the University of California are the governing body that oversees the operation of the entire UC system, its three national laboratories, and its budget and finance. Nineteen of the Regents are appointed by the Governor of California for 12 year terms. Most of these Regents have backgrounds in business and research. The other seven UC Regents are “ex officio” members. There are other public officials, such as the Governor and the UC President. One Regent is drawn from the student body. For basic information on the Regents, a skimming of the UC Office of the President website http://www.ucop.edu is helpful.

The Regents can be understood as the corporate board of directors of the UC. They are a body composed of corporate elites, and bureaucratic, technical, or managerial leaders whose influence and power is put to us by shaping policy within the economic mill that is the University of California. Many of them have financial stakes in the operation of the UC through either direct investments or through indirect interest in the general economic benefits it brings to their enterprises. Many of the Regents serve on the boards of some of the nation's largest corporations.

Much of the important work of the UC Regents is carried out through the committee structure. Students should be acutely aware of two of the committees:

UC Committee on Investments

As of March 2007 the UC Treasury holds funds totaling $72 billion. Its consolidated assets consists of three investment classes: the University of California Retirement Plan (UCRP), General Endowment Pool (GEP), and Short Term Investment Pool (STIP). The largest of these is the UCRP which totals $47.7 million.¹ Of this total, nearly $33 billion is invested in externally-managed, private equity firms.² The UC is heavily invested in some of the world's largest corporations, the most irresponsible businesses, and major weapons manufacturers. Perhaps most infamously known were its investments (>$3 billion) in companies which did business with the South African Apartheid government in the 1980s. The UC also once held and lost $325.5 million in pension and endowment funds in telecom giant MCI WorldCom Inc,³ now known as the corporation which executed perhaps the largest financial fraud in the history of US business (MCI Worldcom has subsequently been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract from the DoD to build cell phone infrastructure in Iraq⁴). Under student pressure to end state-sponsored genocide in Darfur, the University is currently liquidating investments in nine companies doing business with Sudan and will “lobby for [others] to sever ties in Sudan.”⁵

Department of Energy Oversight Committee

The UC Regents also administer the contract between the University of California and a Bechtel-led team (Bechtel is a privately-owned, multibillion-dollar “global engineering, construction and project management company...developing new technologies to fight terrorism”⁶ which also received a $1.3 billion contract from USAID for Iraq reconstruction⁷) to manage the nation's two nuclear weapons design labs. These are Lawrence Livermore National Lab (Livermore, CA) and the Los Alamos National Lab (New Mexico). The UC Regents have tied the university to the nation's nuclear weapons complex since 1943 when Los Alamos was founded. Subsequently, every nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal has been designed by a UC employee (see "Fiat Pax").

The Regent's and the University's interest in the labs are complex, but they include strong institutional ties, personal financial interests, and a tradition of patriotism through “public service.” More recently in June 2007, the Berkeley Labs received $125 million from a DoE grant to spearhead the Joint BioEnergy Institute.⁸ This follows the February 2007 announcement that BP has pledged to give $500 million to UC Berkeley to establish the Energy Biosciences Institute. All of this surrounds recent worldwide dissent from the Global South concerning the research and use of biofuels because of dubious socio-economic and ecological effects (see "Stop BP").

Conflicts of Interest

When an unelected group of the most connected people in California get together to spend our money, what happens? They start giving each other back rubs, of course. The stench of corruption fills the halls.

Just to give an example, the current Chair of the Regents, Richard Blum, has been milking us for years to feed the two construction companies he has been invested in, and his five mansions. While she was on the Subcommittee on Military Construction Appropriations, his wife Diane Feinstein gave URS and Perini corporations juicy contracts to further trash Iraq, only to be outdone by Blum himself once he was appointed to the Board of Regents. He has given his pet companies hundreds of millions in unusual contracts, one of which is to level the Memorial Oaks Grove that students have been protecting for over a year with their treesit.⁹