School Travels to State Capital for Research Briefing and Alumni Gathering Back-to-back events in Sacramento provide networking opportunities and showcase scholarly works

/1 Comment/in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

In mid-February, a contingent of more than 30 people from UCLA Luskin made the trip to northern California in an effort to connect with alumni, government officials and policy experts involved in state government.

The two-day gathering in Sacramento was envisioned as the first of what will become an annual feature of the Luskin’s School’s outreach efforts, pairing an alumni get-together in the state capital with a research-focused briefing for elected officials and their staffs.

The UCLA Luskin Briefing at UC Center Sacramento took place during the time when new bills were being finalized for the next legislative session, and the hope is that the research of UCLA Luskin and its various research centers can put current and future legislative leaders in a better position to make data-informed decisions.

“It was very well attended by elected and appointed officials,” noted Interim Dean Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, who made the effort a priority for this academic year and actively participated in the planning process. “The elected officials I talked to afterward were very appreciative for the event and told me that they hope to see more such events from our School.”

Two briefing sessions were held. A session on water management highlighted research by Adjunct Associate Professor Gregory Pierce MURP ’11 PhD UP ’15, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. A session on affordable housing was led by Associate Professor Michael Lens, associate faculty director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

The briefing and the Alumni Regional Reception, which took place the evening before, brought together faculty, staff or alumni from all four departments — Public Policy, Social Welfare, Urban Planning and the Undergraduate Program — as well as members of the Luskin School’s Board of Advisors.

A group of about 20 current Master of Public Policy students also made the trip, getting an opportunity to connect directly with alumni whose footsteps they may hope to follow, including Assemblyman Isaac Bryan MPP ’18, a member of the affordable housing panel.

Find out more about the briefing and view the bios of the 12 people who participated as speakers or panelists.

View photos from the alumni reception

Sacramento Alumni Regional Reception 2024

View photos from the research briefing

Sacramento Briefing 2024

 

On L.A.’s Complex Cannabis Landscape

/0 Comments/in /by

Brad Rowe, researcher and lecturer of drug and criminal justice policy at UCLA Luskin, spoke to LAist’s “Air Talk” about Los Angeles’ complex landscape of cannabis sales. The legalization of marijuana for recreational use in California initially sparked a Green Rush, but licensed operators are finding that the high cost of doing business and lax enforcement against illicit shops make it tough to compete. Now, the unlicensed market is about two to three times the size of licensed sales, according to Rowe, author of  “Cannabis Policy in the Age of Legalization.” He spoke about the public health risks of untested products and public safety concerns surrounding large, unregulated facilities with weapons and large sums of cash on the premises — “not the kind of neighbors that you want.” Rowe called for targeted, equitable, effective enforcement that protects the rights of legal businesses. “No one has an appetite for heavy-handed drug enforcement,” he said. “The key word is fairness.”

Listen to the podcast

 

Resisting the ‘New McCarthyism’ on College Campuses and Beyond In a UCLA lecture, historian Barbara Ransby warns of a 'war over ideas, over facts, over how we see and understand the world'

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

By Mary Braswell

As a leading scholar of the social and political struggles that have shaped the American experience, Barbara Ransby could easily identify the troubling signs around her.

A climate of fear, intimidation and guilt by association is on the rise today, hallmarks of what she called a new McCarthyism — not just in the halls of power but on college campuses that have historically prided themselves on freedom of expression.

“There is a war right on our campuses, a war over ideas, over facts, over how we see and understand the world, over what we can publish and what we can teach, over how we can protest and whether we can protest,” Ransby told a UCLA audience on Feb. 8.

“Our campuses are central battlegrounds and, overall, on the spectrum of liberalism to authoritarianism, we unfortunately see a steady and frightening move toward authoritarianism.”

But Ransby also pointed to important work being done on campuses around the country, “sites of resistance that inspire me and make me optimistic and hopeful in this moment.”

Ransby, an award-winning historian, author and activist, has a long record of building bridges between scholars and grassroots organizers in their common fight for equal rights and opportunities.

She is a founding member of Scholars for Social Justice, was named to the inaugural class of Freedom Scholars by the Marguerite Casey Foundation, and directs the Social Justice Initiative at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where she is a distinguished professor of African American studies, gender and women’s studies, and history.

Ransby spoke to a capacity crowd in the Grand Salon at UCLA’s Kerckhoff Hall as part of the Luskin Lecture Series and the 2nd Annual Distinguished Lecture in Ideas and Organizing presented by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy (II&D).

UCLA scholars, from left, Ananya Roy, David C. Turner III and Sherene H. Razack join featured speaker Barbara Ransby on stage at Kerckhoff Hall.

The event was preceded by a reception and exhibit of photos from Aetna Street in Van Nuys, an encampment where people sheltered in tents and vehicles until the site was cleared by Los Angeles city officials last August. Aetna Street residents, local activists and UCLA scholars are part of a research collective formed to study the struggle for justice for the unhoused, and the photos on display offered glimpses of the community’s experiments in living and public grieving.

During the lecture and panel discussion, several UCLA scholars whose work centers on social justice shared the stage with Ransby: UCLA Luskin professors Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, interim dean of the Luskin School, and Ananya Roy, director of II&D; Robin D.G. Kelley, distinguished professor of history; Sherene H. Razack, distinguished professor of gender studies; and David C. Turner III, assistant professor of Black life and racial justice at UCLA Luskin Social Welfare.

The dialogue touched on causes for alarm on many fronts: This November’s high-stakes U.S. presidential election. Repressive police tactics. The Israel-Gaza war, with its terrible humanitarian toll and fallout for free speech on college campuses.

Ransby issued a call to action, again turning to the lessons of history. During the anti-war and Black freedom movements of the 1960s, she said, campuses were “epicenters of struggle and resistance. Out of this struggle, real victories were won, even though fraught and fragile.”

Today’s scholar-activists, faculty and students alike, all have a stake in the struggle and must resist efforts to silence dissent, she said. For inspiration, she pointed to several thriving university programs that are on the front lines of the fight for racial and gender equity, police reform, climate justice and housing for all.

“These programs, courses and content areas matter, not just because students have a greater breadth of knowledge, which is true and good,” Ransby said. “But these ideas and theories are also tools for liberation and freedom making. …

“As problematic and complicated and contradictory as they are, as much harm as they do, colleges and universities are places where we build trenches, where we carve out oases, where we create spaces to think, collaborate, inspire, and ask critical and courageous questions about freedom and justice.”

 

Watch the lecture and panel discussion on Vimeo.


View photos of Barbara Ransby’s visit and the Aetna Street photo exhibit on Flickr.

Barbara Ransby Luskin Lecture

Keeping Guard Against the Forces Behind Jan. 6

/0 Comments/in , /by

Sandeep Prasanna MPP/JD ’15 returned to his UCLA Luskin alma mater to share a pressing message about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol: The threat is not over. Prasanna served as investigative counsel for the House Select Committee that issued a comprehensive, 800-page report on the insurrection. “January 6th was not just one event. January 6th was and is an ongoing effort to undermine our democratic institutions,” said Prasanna, whose team spent months interviewing or deposing about 1,000 right-wing extremists who carried out the attack. Now a senior advisor at the law firm Miller & Chevalier, he travels the country to speak with election officials about continuing threats to free and fair voting — including how to safeguard the essential workers who keep the democratic process running smoothly. Prasanna’s comments came at a Feb. 12 event marking the 25th anniversary of UCLA Luskin’s Public Policy program. Chair Robert Fairlie presented him with the 2022 MPP Alumnus of the Year Award, and Professor Mark Peterson led a conversation that touched on Prasanna’s time at UCLA. “I don’t think anyone starts a career in D.C. feeling prepared because things that you learn in a textbook are so different from interacting with people in real life,” Prasanna said. “But the thing they say about law school is that they teach you how to think like a lawyer. What I feel I learned at Luskin was how to do.” He encouraged UCLA Luskin students to take advantage of internships and other opportunities on the East Coast. “There’s a lot of work to do in California, for sure,” he said, “but I think D.C. could use more Luskin grads.”

Learn more about events marking Public Policy’s 25th anniversary. 

View photos of Prasanna’s talk on Flickr.

A Conversation With Sandeep Prasanna MPP/JD ’15

 

Prospects for Progress on Affordable Housing Solutions

/0 Comments/in /by

UCLA Luskin’s Michael Lens spoke to the podcast Health Affairs This Week about the roots of zoning policies that have kept neighborhoods segregated by race and income, and the prospects for progress in addressing the nation’s affordable housing crisis. Efforts to change zoning laws to accommodate more housing units have historically been met with strong resistance, but Lens said the conversation has shifted just in the last decade. Now, there is widespread acknowledgment that “we need to do something somewhere” to provide residents with safe and affordable shelter. “The problem is that we have let this go on for so long, this lack of housing production and increased housing costs for people from the poor to middle class,” he said. But Lens pointed to states and cities that are upending zoning restrictions that have long kept a lid on housing development, and concluded, “This is a really good time for hope.”

Listen to the podcast

 

Heated Debate as Cal State Union Votes on a New Deal

/0 Comments/in /by

Urban Planning Professor Chris Tilly spoke to LAist about a tentative deal to settle a strike by California State University faculty. The union representing 29,000 coaches, counselors, lecturers, librarians and professors will vote on the agreement this week, and many are torn over whether they should support the deal or hold out for better terms. “Heated debate among membership is a good thing. Democratic unions with engaged memberships are healthier for it,” said Tilly, an expert on labor markets who also spoke with student media about the strike. Tilly noted that the agreement includes additional raises for the union’s lowest-paid members. “That’s something that unions don’t always attend to but is really important,” he said. “We have growing inequality. And in any workplace, the people at the bottom are the people that are struggling the most, and the fact that the union put a priority on that and won that is really a very positive thing.”

Read the article

 

I-15 Expansion Highlights Tension Between Commerce, Climate Goals

/0 Comments/in /by

Michael Manville, chair of Urban Planning at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the approval of a freeway-widening project on Interstate 15. Truck movement along the I-15 is a major driver of the region’s economy, and the project highlights the friction between efforts to expand infrastructure to accommodate commerce and the state’s ambitious climate goals. Now, federal officials are looking into allegations that state and local officials mischaracterized the potential harm the project could cause communities that breathe in some of the nation’s worst air. Proponents of the I-15 expansion had argued that new lanes would speed up commutes, but critics said the opposite was true, that making more space for vehicles would draw even more drivers, increasing congestion and pollution. Traffic modeling studies can be used to say what you want them to say, Manville said. “From the moment we first started using these models many decades ago, they have aspects of being a black box.”

Read the article

 

Debate Over the Best Path to Affordable Housing

/0 Comments/in /by

A CityWatch article about the competing academic and economic theories at play in California’s affordable housing debate put a spotlight on comments made by UCLA Luskin’s Michael Storper during a meeting with the California Alliance of Local Electeds. Housing costs reflect a mix of economic, market and cultural factors, so a complex suite of policies is needed to address interpersonal inequality in our cities, says Storper, a distinguished professor of urban planning. He takes issue with the notion that simply constructing more units will lead to lasting solutions to California’s affordable housing crisis. “I think this is one of the toughest challenges we’re facing,” he said. “In big, prosperous metropolitan areas, what would it take to build housing for the big middle or lower end of the income distribution, quality housing that people want to live in?”

Read the article

Amplifying Latina Voices in Law and Policymaking

/0 Comments/in /by

By 2050, Latinas are expected to make up 13% of the U.S. population and account for 11% of the labor force. Yet Latinas comprise only 2.5% of all U.S. lawyers, account for less than 1% of all partners in law firms and have never served on the highest court in 44 states. To address this gap in Latina representation and leadership in law and policy, the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute; Latina Futures, 2050 Lab; Latina Lawyers Bar Association; and UCLA Chicanx Latinx Law Review hosted the inaugural Latina Futures: Transforming the Nation Through Law and Policy symposium. The event, which took place Jan. 20 and 21 at UCLA’s Luskin Conference Center, brought together nearly 400 Latina scholars, attorneys, politicians, policy leaders and students from across the country to explore today’s legal and advocacy challenges and opportunities through a Latina lens. “This weekend, we are replacing the status quo with forward-thinking, accurate and necessary contributions from Latina leaders now and well into the future,” said Sonja Diaz, founding executive director of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute. Diaz co-founded the Latina Futures, 2050 Lab with Veronica Terriquez, professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin and director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center. Terriquez expressed hope that the symposium would inspire participants to continue their advocacy and leadership. “We have the potential to inform social, political and economic changes that benefit the majority of this nation,” she said. “This is a long game, and it builds on the work that came before us.” — Cristian Rivera

Read the full story