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The University of California’s Board of Regents on Wednesday postponed a planned vote on a policy that would prohibit academic departments and other academic units from posting political statements on their website homepages.
The proposal comes amid UC departments posting statements supporting Palestinians. EdSource previously reported on the delay.
“Discretionary statements must not appear on the main homepage of a website of an academic unit, and instead should be posted on a separate page identified for such,” the latest version of the proposed policy says. It says “discretionary statements” are communications “purporting to be made on behalf of the academic campus unit” that aren’t “part of the day-to-day, term-to-term operations of the unit, and that comment on institutional, local, regional, global or national events, activities or issues. Such statements at times are described as political or controversial.”
The board already tabled earlier policies addressing this in January. When a joint meeting of two board committees began discussing the latest version Wednesday, there was yelling, cheers and chants of “Shame on you!” from audience members. Board member Jay Sures, chair of the meeting, called for police to clear the room.
Upon reconvening and after another hour of discussion, Sures suggested postponing the issue until the next meeting. “We’ll hear everyone’s point of view, we’ll modify if we need to modify,” he said. Board members agreed, with no dissent.
