Lawmakers May Tussle With University Of California Over Undocumented Students, But Their Power Is Limited

In May 2023, the policy-making body of the University of California, the UC Regents, voted unanimously to open campus jobs in the system’s 10 campuses for students who are undocumented.

It was a watershed proposal that relied on new — and untested — legal analysis of federal employment law put forward by UCLA faculty. It would have the potential to help tens of thousands of students earn money to pay for school.

But in January, regents did an about face and suspended implementation after UC’s president warned that such a change could lead to a loss of federal funding and open the university system and its staff up to lawsuits and other legal issues.

Lawmakers have responded with legislation to force the issue, possibly setting up a clash with top UC leaders.

Here’s the problem: The California constitution gives the legislature the power to pass laws to shape policies in much of the state’s higher education system — but not the University of California.

That means legislative workarounds to UC issues — like the employment options for undocumented students — often stop short of a mandate.

How did UC get this autonomy from state lawmakers?

You could say that University of California’s separate — some would say, elite — status was there at its infancy, when state legislators gave UC, then just one campus, the status of public trust...

The university's leaders insisted that autonomy would save the University of California "from the partisan politics and rampant corruption that marked California’s turbulent 1870s,” said UC Berkeley researcher John Douglass via email.

President University of California President Michael Drake

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Bottom line: California legislators can pass laws to change the inner workings of the California State University system, and the California community colleges, but not the University of California.

What that autonomy means for undocumented students

After UC Regents unanimously approved the plan for undocumented students last year, UC President Michael Drake’s office stepped in to oppose it.

“[A]fter receiving advice from both inside and outside legal counsel, we concluded that there were considerable risks for the University and the students we aim to support,” saidMario Guerrero, Drake’s legislative director, in a letter to state legislators.

UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy, which authored the legal analysis pushing for the change, said President Drake’s concerns are overblown.

Sacramento lawmakers step in to push UC to pass shelved plan

The first legislator to step in was Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes. On Feb. 27, she introduced ACA 20 — a constitutional amendment — to compel UC campuses to create these jobs for students who are undocumented.

“Like many, I was incredibly disappointed by the decision of the University of California Board of Regents to deny undocumented students at UC the same ability to seek employment at UC as their peers,” Cervantes said in an email to LAist.

Cervantes wants UC to open the jobs to students who are undocumented.

“ACA 20 is the only vehicle in the Legislature this session that would force UC to do so,” Cervantes said.

Assemblymember David Alvarez, meanwhile, introduced a proposal in April, AB 2586, which urges UC, CSU, and community colleges to open those jobs.

Who wins in a UC vs. Sacramento bout?

This isn’t the first time Sacramento has stepped in to challenge a controversial UC policy direction.

Lawmakers have recently tried to push the university system to enroll more students from California. The end result is more carrot than stick — promising tens of millions of dollars to adjust in-state enrollment.

Admission and tuition issues go back years.

“I am going to vote against the 5% tuition increase,” said then-Gov. Jerry Brown to UC’s President and Regents in 2014. The hot issue at the meeting was a politically unpopular proposal to increase UC student tuition to make up for a state funding shortfall.

“The plan needs to move forward,” UC President Janet Napolitano told Brown and others at the meeting.

Two implicit threats were in the air: Napolitano would push for a tuition increase if Sacramento didn’t increase funding, and Brown would hold up funding if UC approved a tuition increase.

California governor-elect Jerry Brown, a Democrat, speaks to supporters as he celebrates his win over Republican challenger and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

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The outcome? Six months later Napolitano and Brown resolved their face-off as rising state revenue allowed Brown to increase UC’s budget. Napolitano supported a two-year freeze of student tuition.

The current face-off between UC policymakers and the state legislature is complicated by the divisions within UC leadership.

Drake opposes the campus jobs plan while a number of UC Regents support it, including Regent John Pérez, a politically connected former speaker of the state assembly who has supported immigrant rights policies.

Lawmaker Alvarez, for his part, wishes for a more collaborative solution than what happened with Brown and Napolitano.

“I don't operate in a world of threats,” he told LAist. “We're all in public service to do right by our community … I expect that the UC will, if this bill gets signed by the governor, that they will implement this with fidelity and do what's right.”

How healthy is the conflict?

The UC Regents have the power to hire and fire the president of the university system. But the Regents aren’t the only constituency Drake answers to.

“Any head of a [university] system has three bosses,” said USC emeritus education professor William Tierney. “One of them is Sacramento, and that's the governor and the legislature. A second is the faculty and students of the specific campus, and the third is the state and community."

Drake’s decision to oppose a policy approved by his bosses based on possible future financial repercussions wasn’t misguided, Tierney said, because as president of the entire university, Drake is responsible for the system’s finances.

Generations ago, Tierney said, many Californians felt a high regard for the UC system that led them to be deferential to how the system was run.

“The world has changed, not because the systems have changed, but I think the way the public looks at public entities is very different,” he said, and that’s led more people to want to hold UC to account because the state spends billions of dollars each year to help run the UC system.

The two legislative proposals to open up UC campus jobs for students who are undocumented, Tierney said, are attempts by Sacramento to micromanage the UC.

Some answer back that lawmakers are answering to a wider constituency.

“The legislature obviously has a rightful duty to hold the UC accountable,” said Michele Siqueiros, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, an LA-based nonprofit that lobbies policymakers to widen access to California higher education.

Siqueiros is in favor of the Opportunity for All proposal because it would help an underserved population of college students. She’s not surprised, she said, that Drake raised red flags.

“The tension is good,” she said, “and a healthy part of our democratic system of checks and balances.”