New student regent stresses student voice as essential

Published: Thursday, February 29, 1996

By Michael Howerton

Daily Bruin Staff

As UC Berkeley law student Jess Bravin settled into his first meeting as the newly approved student regent for next year, the board warmly welcomed him and one of their members lavished him with the highest praise.

"Jess has done all kinds of good student work," Regent William Bagley said at the meeting in San Francisco two weeks ago, adding that he is looking forward to having a student regent who he thinks will be "very cooperative so he will be listened to."

The boos and hisses from the audience at this remark underscored the tension and hostility that has surrounded the student regent position in recent months.

Student groups have repeatedly charged the board with ignoring their input. In addition, the board's firm stance that they alone chart the university's course has increasingly caused pressure to rest on the student regent position.

Throughout his tenure this year, Student Regent Ed Gomez has battled most of the board over their acceptance of measures eliminating affirmative action in the university.

The growing antagonism between the students and the regents was demonstrated by the arrest of 10 students at the January regents' meeting for speaking beyond the imposed 60-second time limit. Gomez' combative attitude has marginalized his own voice in policy discussions, some regents have charged.

The tensions came to a head in the days before the last meeting when a motion was proposed to eliminate the student regent position which has sat a student in the board with full voting powers since 1975.

The motion was then dropped just before the meeting in which the board voted to accept Bravin as the next student regent.

In his first address to the board, Bravin defended the importance of the student regent position and cited that the law allows a student representative to sit on every educational policy board in the state.

"Student membership on governing boards, then, is not a radical experiment, but a proven way to enhance educational policy, heighten accountability and strengthen the legitimacy of institutional governance in a democratic society," he said in his speech.

"Student participation is essential in university governance," he continued. "That is not to say, however, that having a regent who is a student will always make board meetings run more smoothly, if smoothly means silently."

Later that afternoon, he demonstrated just what he meant when he sharply criticized the regents for even considering accepting differential tuition for professional schools and he accused the regents of abandoning the guiding principles of the university.

After his comments, Regent Meredith Khachigian joked under her breath that, "it's a shame we couldn't have found someone more eloquent."

This comment is the epitome of one of the reasons Bravin is going to be an effective student regent, said Kevin Welner, UCLA's graduate external vice-president and member of the board of directors of the University of California Students' Association.

"It will be a great benefit to have someone up there who is a good spokesperson to present our concerns and needs in a compelling way," Welner said.

"His resume shows him to be arguably more qualified than many of the appointed regents," he continued. "He only lacks the contributions to political campaigns, and that only gives us added credibility."

The student regent position is crucial to governance of the university, Bravin explained a few days after the meeting, sitting in his office in the UC Berkeley Graduate Association building.

Since students have a different perspective on the institution than the regents, the student regent will inevitably differ on some issues, Bravin explained. The fact that the students only have one vote among 26 leaves them in the minority on these issues, but the inclusion at the table of discussion is important.

"In our country, dissent does have an important place. It can be a powerful force," he said. "Even people who lose, feel their voice has been heard and that they still have a stake in the institution."

It is a mistake, Bravin warned, to see any one issue as the determinant between the winners and the losers. The battle over affirmative action in the university has been such an issue.

Many viewed the proponents of affirmative action as forever in the majority and opponents as forever excluded, Bravin said. But this is being blind to the larger issue that the majority is fluid and changes constantly with each new issue, he added.

"I think it was a mistake for the board to pass SP-1 and -2 (the measures which eliminated affirmative action)," Bravin said. "The place to test issues is not in a policy board, but in the legislature."

The issue of whether race should be considered in admissions procedures is not an easy question, he admitted, but the voters should make the decision as a state. If the California Civil Rights Initiative passes in eliminating race considerations, then the board will move on, he said. If voters reject the bill, then the board will be under extreme pressure to reconsider the issue.

"There's a subtle balance we need to maintain," he said. "This country is based on individual rights, but background is a part of the individual. The problem comes when you take a simple observation, like this, and institutionalize it.

"The result is that race became a shorthand way to create diversity in the university," Bravin explained. Although the policy has holes where some in need fall through and others get swept along solely because of their race, the truth is that it will be more difficult to maintain diversity without using race as a shorthand."

At the board meeting, Bravin whipped out his copy of the 1960 Master Plan, which set forth the roles of public education in California. While he shook it in front of the other regents, he accused them of abandoning its principles and questioned if any of them had even read it.

"I feel that the Master Plan is a remarkable vision of what education should be," he said, sitting in his office. "I think that the university has walked away from its compact with the people of what role it should have and how accessible it should be."

Since he was elected as a finalist in last year's student regent election process, Bravin has been working with Welner on drafting an initiative to reform the Master Plan.

Part of the problem with the original plan is that while it included avenues in which to fund California's lower and secondary education systems, it made no similar provision for higher education, relying on the voters and legislature to provide the any funds it needed, Bravin said.

Recently however, there has been a piecemeal dismantling of the provisions of the Master Plan. This may be because voters and the state have become more unwilling to provide funds for higher education.

"(The purpose of the initiative) is to get California to confront the choice it must make about education," he said. "California needs to make a choice as a state, not by a small number of administrators. I want California to reconfirm its commitment or reject it outright."

More people are getting involved in the proposal, including Clark Kerr, one of the original authors of the Master Plan, and California Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, Bravin said.

"Pressure is building to take on higher education and California's future," he said. "People see things have to change. It's not if, but what kind of reform measures it will be."

The initiative will probably be ready to be put before the voters in the 1998 state-wide elections, said Welner.

Early on, Bravin took an interest in activism. His interned with the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors as a 14-year-old - their youngest intern ever - and with the state senate the following year.

As a student at Westside Alternative School in Marina del Rey, Bravin led a campaign to place a student on the Los Angeles City Board of Education. He was the first student to hold that position in 1981 and then won re-election the following year.

It was there that he began to understand how policies are made and began developing strong opinions about what shape those polices should take, he said. But the experience had its disillusions.

"I was terribly frustrated at the end of my term on the board," he said. "Like a lot of young people, you think you know how it should be and you just have to explain it, but you learn it's not that simple, that there are reasons why things are the way they are. Some make sense and some don't."

As an undergraduate at Harvard, Bravin steered clear of involvement on any governance boards, focusing on his degree in ancient history and his involvement in journalism.

"I had to prove that my identity was not solely wrapped up in governmental and policy work," he said describing the importance writing had to him, as he became editor of the Crimson at Harvard and wrote a play for a local production.

It was after college, when he began meeting others who had gone through the same disillusions with their attempts to affect institutions, that he got back into working on policy committees.

At UC Berkeley, as well as being a board member of the UC Students Association, he sits on the board which oversees Berkeley's outreach program.

The student regent position is another way to help influence the university whose future he has so much at stake in, he said. Far from being just another line on his resume, he said, he sees this as his opportunity to participate in forming new directions for the university.

"I don't need to prove anything to people in power," he said, "or ingratiate myself to any structure. I don't see this as a stepping stone. It's a tremendous honor and opportunity.

"This is a time in history when people think that the government doesn't matter, that community values are not worth the trouble," he said. "I certainly don't believe that. It's important to have realistic expectations and to be ambitious as well."Comments to webmaster@db.asucla.ucla.edu