Victory for transparency and shared governance! On October 14, the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) and the UCLA Faculty Association won their lawsuit against the UC Regents for the release of the demand letter issued by the Department of Justice in August. A California Superior Court judge affirmed that the public has a right to know about issues affecting California’s state institutions.
The fight is on to defend the university. On October 24, UCOP released the Trump administration’s demand letter, which confirmed that the federal government is trying to extort $1.2 billion from the University of California. This legally baseless fine could gut life-saving research, raise tuition, increase class sizes, force workers to work longer hours with less pay, and reduce access for California students.
The Trump administration’s demands strike at the heart of our university and academic freedom. They include the elimination of programs and policies that seeks to promote diversity and inclusiveness and to support members of historically marginalized groups; the prohibition of all kinds of expressive activities on campuses protected by the First Amendment; intervention in admission processes to bar international students on the mere suspicion that they hold viewpoints that the current administration opposes; imposition of anti-trans policies and cancellation of gender-affirming medical care; and the appointment of a senior administrator to enforce compliance and regularly report to the Trump administration.
SBFA joins our allies in demanding that the Regents reject these demands and stand firm in defending the University.
AAUP, AFT, and other partners call for a National Day of Action on Higher Education on November 7. College students and workers across the country are coming together to demand college affordability, the freedom to teach, learn, and research without partisan interference, and safety for vulnerable members of our campus communities. CUCFA will hold a systemwide town-hall meeting at 4:00 on November 7. Register to attend here.
Just say no to Trellix surveillance. Despite the Academic Senate’s June 12 call for a halt to the implementation and expansion of the Trellix endpoint detection and response (EDR) surveillance software on all university computers, UCOP has not complied. On many campuses, faculty are being mandated to install Trellix software on all computers used for university business, including teaching and research, as well as those that manage private financial, medical, and other sensitive data.
Once installed, Trellix enables comprehensive and invasive monitoring, extraction, alteration, and even deletion of files without user consent or notification. This is an extraordinary intrusion into the privacy, freedom of expression, and intellectual security of faculty, and thus violates core principles of the university’s educational and research missions.
On October 23, CUCFA and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) issued a joint letter condemning UCOP’s refusal to yield to the expressed will of faculty as a serious violation of shared governance principles and “an extraordinary intrusion into the privacy, freedom of expression, and intellectual security of faculty, and thus violates core principles of the university’s educational and research missions.”
Is our university protecting due process and speech rights of faculty, students, and staff? On September 12, news broke that UC Berkeley had given the names of 160 faculty, students, and staff to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in response to an investigation into possible civil rights violations. The investigation, which began during the Biden administration, alleged that Berkeley, as well as UCSB, UCLA, UCSD, UCD, and UCSC, failed to adequately respond to complaints of antisemitic discrimination. A settlement to resolve the investigations was reached in December 2024. The University’s effort to provide anonymized files was rejected by the OCR. In June, Berkeley submitted unredacted documentation, including unadjudicated allegations and uninvestigated complaints. In an October 3 message, UC President James Milliken explained: “As part of that agreement, the University committed to provide to OCR detailed information about civil rights complaints filed during the 2024-25 academic year.”
In October, three UCSB faculty met with the Director of the Title IX Compliance and Discrimination and Harassment Prevention Office to learn how OCR demands might have affected members of this campus. The Director confirmed that the Office is committed to complying with all relevant civil rights laws, as well as UC policy and any agreements with the federal government. This commitment includes working to protect the rights of faculty, staff, and students.
On October 28, the UC Academic Council issued a statement on recent disclosures of personally identifiable information (PII). The unanimously endorsed statement urges the University to strengthen systemwide safeguards for privacy, ensure timely notification of affected individuals, and consult UC faculty with relevant expertise when evaluating future federal disclosure requests.
We continue to advocate on vital bread-and-butter issues such as rising healthcare costs. SBFA and CUCFA work with our partners in the UC Union Coalition to demand inclusion in all decision-making about healthcare premium costs and the university’s obligation to pay its share.
We support international faculty. SBFA is committed to supporting CUCFA’s International Faculty Network to advocate for the rights and interests of international faculty as well as students and staff.
| SBFA and CUCFA: The Santa Barbara Faculty Association (SBFA) is a voluntary, dues-supported organization of Academic Senate members dedicated to the improvement of the economic status and general welfare of the UCSB faculty. The SBFA, along with the Faculty Associations of the other UC campuses and their coordinating organization, the Council of the UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA), are the only bodies empowered to represent the faculty before the University or the Legislature on matters relating to their economic or employment interests, in accordance with the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (1979). Faculty Associations and CUCFA are independent organizations that can represent faculty concerns in coordination with (or divergence from) the Academic Senate. CUCFA can also take political positions without restriction by university guidelines. Want to get involved? JOIN SBFA |
SBFA Board:
Co-chairs Lisa Hajjar (Sociology) and Laila Shereen Sakr (Film and Media Studies)
Bassam Bamieh (Mechanical Engineering)
Felice Blake (English)
Joseph Blankholm (Religious Studies)
Kalju Kahn (Chemistry)
Nelson Lichtenstein (History)
Maxwell Millar-Blanchaer (Physics)
Advisory Members:
Eileen Boris (Feminist Studies)
Claudio Fogu (French and Italian)
Harold Marcuse (History)
Constance Penley, Past President of CUCFA 2017 – 2025 (Film and Media Studies)