There Is No Leadership At The University Of California

By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

 

Some of us are alumni of University of California campuses; and our kids and grandkids are too.  In my case, I grew up a mile or so west of the UCLA campus in Los Angeles; and my friends and I used to ride our Schwinn bicycles to the Village and Bruin theaters in Westwood on Saturdays to watch movies.

Perhaps it is a sign of the times, but walking to the campus recently from a parking structure south of the theaters, there was a woman lying on the sidewalk next to the Village theater who was nude from the waist up.  People walked by, ostensibly trying not to notice her, but I was told that she was not an aberration.

The California that I grew up loving is hated nationwide; and some Americans argue that it should be cut loose from the other states and floated out to sea.  At the very least, vast changes need to be made, which may or may not be instituted by the woke elements like its Governor Gavin Newsom who run the state and aspire to higher political offices.

Last night, UCLA's football team was destroyed in the antiquated Rose Bowl by the University of New Mexico, 35-10.[2]  Alums and fans are calling for the coach DeShaun Foster's ouster now, and that of UCLA's Athletic Director Martin Jarmond, before the season gets even worse.

At the University of California's mother campus of Berkeley from which I graduated too, free speech is dead and buried, even though the campus gave rise to the "Free Speech Movement" when I was there, which spread nationwide.  Its law school is run by a tyrant, Erwin Chemerinsky, who should have been fired years ago.[3]

At the university's lovely Santa Barbara campus on the Pacific Ocean, which I attended and from which my kids and a granddaughter graduated, the school was run by Henry Yang who could barely speak English.  His mishandling of on-campus student housing set the school back years if not decades, and was a total disgrace.

These examples are not aberrations.  The Regents of the University of California should be fired, as well as the University's leadership.  Wokeness does not fly nationwide, much less in the state where lots of us were born and raised, and which we have loved our entire lifetimes.

 

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© 2025, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-21-8-6  and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/accomplishments/   He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at The Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service).  Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/ and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/articles/), and studied photography with Ansel Adams.  He can be contacted directly at [email protected]

[2]  See https://www.si.com/college/ucla/bruins-deshaun-foster-postgame-new-mexico-lobos ("What DeShaun Foster Said After 35-UCLA Loss")

[3]   See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2023/10/19/is-free-speech-dead-and-buried-at-berkeley-and-elsewhere/ ("Is Free Speech Dead And Buried At Berkeley And Elsewhere")