July 7, 2020
President Janet Napolitano
and President-Elect Michael V. Drake
Office of the President
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Dear President Napolitano and President-Elect Drake,
We write as members of the Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations to express our outrage and deep concern at the surprise announcement made yesterday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement that restricts the mode of delivery of classes to foreign students (https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-exemptions-nonimmigrant-students-taking-online-courses-during).
Like our colleagues around the country, we see this move for what it is: a blatant attempt by President Trump to force colleges to reopen whatever the health risks to students, faculty, and staff. The ICE rule also looks like an attempt to expel yet more foreign nationals from the United States to pander to his shrinking base. This rule forces students to choose between risking COVID infection on campus or risking it by traveling home. This is one more example of universities being made to do the work of immigration and border enforcement. Given the University of California’s conflicted approach to reopening for in-person classes, we know you are well aware of the dangers that being forced to reopen more fully would present. We urge you both, together, to demand this policy be rescinded immediately, to initiate any possible legal remedies to that end, and to use all of UC’s considerable legislative and public authority to push for legislation to overturn it. In the meantime, we urge you to develop contingencies to ensure that all students currently enrolled can remain in the US, including offering safe havens for those unwilling and unable to return home.
Communication around this issue has been confusing and alarming to our students. Therefore we also call on you to task someone at the system-wide level to provide timely and consistent information on this topic to faculty and students across all campuses.
We look forward to working with you both, and the chancellors and Senates of the UC campuses and other colleagues in the California public university system to resist this cruel and xenophobic rule.
Sincerely,
The Executive Board of the Council of UC Faculty Associations
It would be better to address concerns to political leaders in Congress and elsewhere who could do something about it. Harvard and MIT have already filed a lawsuit and UC – most likely – will join in that suit or file its own. There is no doubt where Napolitano & Drake stand. It’s pretty clear that the various UC campuses are going to have programs that are largely or entirely online in the fall. It’s too late to change that approach, whatever the Trump administration does or wants. We are already well into July and Berkeley starts its semester in August. Even campuses that start in September likely have programs that start in August, e.g., UCLA law.