UC Regents Change Course on Hiring Undocumented Students

ImmigProf blog co-editor Ming H. Chen published an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee advocating campus support for undocumented students after UC Regents change course on authorizing hiring, to the disappointment of many immprofs and Opportunity for All student activists who signed open letters supporting the previously proposed policy and attesting to their willingness to hire well-qualified students, without regard to immigration status. Her op-ed accompanies leadership efforts from ImmProfs Ahilan Arulanantham and Hiroshi Motomura at UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy.

An excerpt of the article:

The UC should continue to lead the way on educational opportunities for undocumented students by thinking creatively and fighting fiercely for its students. This latest episode may mean that the mantle is shifting. If change will not come from the top, then campuses need to identify and implement their own solutions from the bottom up.

What can campuses do on their own? Universities can create meaningful experiences as fellowships with stipends, even if they will not permit salaried campus jobs; they can increase scholarships to reduce need; and reconfigure academic credit for experiential work (which many colleges are embracing as higher education strives to demonstrate its relevance to the world beyond their campuses). At law schools such as UC Law San Francisco, where I teach, the American Bar Association is requiringexperiential work for accreditation. More ideas are being explored by the UC Labor Center and student activists as they process the unexpected decision.