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Tilly on Worrisome Economic Signals From California

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A Barron’s article about concerns that California’s climbing jobless rate and other economic indicators may be harbingers of a national economic downturn quoted Chris Tilly, UCLA Luskin professor of urban planning and an expert on labor and workplace trends. Tilly said four broad employment sectors in the state are either shrinking or stagnant: construction, particularly residential construction; durable goods; wholesale; and information, which includes media and entertainment jobs. The state economy, the largest in the U.S., grew by an annual rate of 0.4% in 2022, so it’s difficult to call California a “bad economy,” Tilly said. Still, “California is not in a recession at this point, but it is a risk,” and the state “may be a leading indicator for what’s happening elsewhere.”

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Levy-Storms Receives Award to Create Community-Engaged Course on Aging

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Lené Levy-Storms, associate professor of social welfare and geriatrics, is one of four UCLA faculty members selected to develop new classes that have an impact on Los Angeles and beyond, thanks to the fourth annual Chancellor’s Awards for Community-Engaged Scholars program. Levy-Storms will use the $10,000 award to develop “Frontiers in Human Aging: Biomedical, Psychosocial and Policy Perspectives,” a core course for the UCLA Luskin gerontology minor. The class will explore human aging through several disciplines: biology, physiology, sociology, anthropology, psychology, public health and policy. Levy-Storms will add a formal community engagement aspect focused on intergenerational interactions aimed at shattering ageism. “Students will learn things in this course that will be helpful for the rest of their and their families’ and friends’ lives,” Levy-Storms said. “My vision for the future is not just young students learning about older adults, but rather different generations relating to and communicating with one another, learning how to help each other thrive in whatever life stage they are — together.” Supported by the UCLA Office of the Chancellor and the UCLA Center for Community Engagement, the awards enable faculty members to enrich the university’s curriculum through courses featuring collaborative learning experiences with community partners. This year’s awards will lead to new classes offered during the 2024-25 or 2025-26 academic calendar.

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Bau on the Chilling Effect on College Ambitions

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The education news site Chalkbeat spoke to Natalie Bau, associate professor of public policy and economics, about how the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action might affect students applying for college. Bau shared her research on student motivation after Texas lifted its ban on considering race in college admissions two decades ago. The study found that Black and Latino high school students had better school attendance, higher SAT scores and higher grades, and they applied to more colleges because “now it becomes attainable, so it makes sense to put in that extra effort,” she said. Now that the high court has put an end to race-conscious admissions, some students of color might lower their college ambitions. “Underrepresented minority students might reduce their effort in high school and that might result in lower test scores, lower grades, lower attendance and fewer applications to selective institutions,” Bau said. “That might make this under-application problem worse.”

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‘Have the Courage to Create the World We All Deserve to Live In’ Commencement speaker Michael Tubbs challenges UCLA Luskin's Class of 2023 to use their education for the greater good

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By Mary Braswell

Savor the moment, then get to work.

That was the Commencement Day message from anti-poverty advocate Michael Tubbs, who called on UCLA Luskin’s Class of 2023 to use their education and training to restructure society from the ground up, with justice as a guide.

“We’re here not because of what you’ve done but who you will become and how you will use the precious gift of this UCLA education,” Tubbs said. “We need you all to have the courage to imagine and create the world we all deserve to live in.”

Tubbs spoke to public policy, social welfare and urban planning scholars earning advanced degrees at a morning ceremony on June 16 at UCLA’s Royce Hall. In the afternoon, he addressed students awarded the bachelor of public affairs at a festive gathering on the patio of Kerckhoff Hall.

Tubbs made history in 2016 when he was elected the first Black mayor of Stockton, California, at age 26. He recalled his own educational journey as a first-generation graduate of Stanford University, and offered this reminder to UCLA Luskin’s newly minted BAs, MPPs, MSWs, MURPs and PhDs:

“The alphabets behind your names don’t mean you’re better than people … and dare I say they don’t even mean you’re smarter than the people who raised you,” he said. “But what it does mean is that you’re better equipped to serve. It does mean you’re better able to self-actualize. It does mean you’re better positioned to use your privilege and your access to do some good.”

Students who earned the bachelor of public affairs receive their degrees on the patio of Kerckhoff Hall. Photo by Todd Cheney

This year, more than 420 students earned bachelors, master’s and doctoral degrees from UCLA Luskin. Interim Dean Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris offered congratulations while also underscoring the stakes at play as the national election cycle is now picking up steam.

“You are taking your places in the workforce during a critical time not just for America but for the entire world. Who are we as a people? What are our values? Will we make the right decisions to better all of society? …

“As I look at you, I take comfort. I know you have been well prepared,” Loukaitou-Sideris said. “I trust that you will remain dedicated to a future in which geography, income, gender or race have little bearing on an individual’s ability to access opportunity and have a fulfilling life. I can’t wait to see all that you will accomplish.”

At each commencement ceremony, students delivered greetings in different languages, 16 in all, a reflection of the School’s cultural diversity. Four students were selected by their peers to offer words of inspiration: Chinyere Nwonye of Public Policy, Jhorna Islam of Social Welfare, Antonia Izuoga of Urban Planning and Mina Anochie of the Undergraduate Program.

In his remarks, Tubbs urged the graduates to make the most of both the triumphs and the inevitable disappointments in life. As Stockton’s mayor, he led a program of reforms to reduce poverty, provide scholarships to students, bring down the homicide rate and improve the city’s fiscal health — yet his bid for reelection in 2020 failed.

The defeat ultimately led to an important realization: “Your job, your title, your accolades — that’s a means to an end … but your purpose remains the same.”

Tubbs went on to join the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom as special advisor for economic mobility and opportunity, and is widely viewed as a rising star in progressive politics. He is a leading advocate for a guaranteed basic income to provide stability to American households, and last year he founded End Poverty in California, a nonprofit devoted to breaking the cycle of income inequality.

“Today is such a wonderful day because it’s a mountaintop day. It’s one of those days where everything comes together,” Tubbs told the graduates. “But I submit to you, over the course of the next several decades of your life, every day won’t feel like this day. …

“As you figure out what it is you want to do, maybe your purpose, maybe part of what you’re supposed to do, will be found in the pain you’ve experienced, in the things that make you angry, in the things that feel unfair, in the things your parents had to experience.”

Tubbs advised the students to take the long view as they work toward change. As a younger man, he had the privilege of meeting Bob Singleton, a UCLA alumnus and one of the original Freedom Riders, civil rights activists who boarded buses to Southern states to challenge segregation. Singleton was arrested for his actions on June 4, 1961. The same day, Barack Obama was born.

“He said he had no idea that the choice he made as a 21-year-old UCLA graduate to do something to change the world would pave the way so that 50 years later a child born with no opportunity would have the chance to be president,” Tubbs said.

“Class of 2023, the question before you all today as you get your degrees is what are you prepared to do today, tomorrow and next week so that 50 years from now, we’re not having the same conversation? So that 50 years from now we don’t have hundreds of thousands of people in our state sleeping in tents right next to luxury apartments and mansions? … So that 50 years from now, we live in a country that’s deserving of your talent, of your time and of your treasure?”

View photos and video from the UCLA Luskin undergraduate commencement ceremony:

Commencement 2023: Undergraduate

View photos and video from the UCLA Luskin master’s and doctoral commencement ceremony:

Commencement 2023: Graduate

 

Opening Doors of Opportunity for Undocumented Students Spearheaded by two UCLA Luskin master's students, a campaign to establish the right to work puts public policy coursework into action

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By Mary Braswell

Two UCLA Luskin master’s students are putting their public policy education into action to advocate for equal opportunities for undocumented students — and their work is already paying off.

Last fall, Carlos Alarcon and Karely Amaya spearheaded a campaign known as Opportunity for All, which called on the University of California to remove hiring restrictions for all students, regardless of immigration status.

Backed by labor, legal and education experts across the nation, the campaign laid out a strategy that upended prevailing interpretations of a 1986 federal law that had blocked employment opportunities for undocumented immigrants.

In May, hundreds of students from up and down California carpooled to UCLA to show their support at a rally during a meeting of the UC Regents. During a public comment period the following day, speakers donned Opportunity for All T-shirts to stand in solidarity.

“Just to see the sea of blue — it was beautiful,” said Amaya, who delivered an impassioned statement to the regents that day, along with Alarcon and other advocates.

At the close of the session, the board voted unanimously to find a pathway to enact the groundbreaking policy. It established a working group that set out to tackle the legal and political ramifications within six months.

“Absolutely, it is our intention to find a way to allow employment opportunities for all our students, regardless of their immigration status,” Regent John A. Pérez said after the meeting. “This is too important to get wrong.”

‘This could set a huge precedent for what happens next.’ — Student leader Karely Amaya

Alarcon and Amaya credited the vast array of forces that came together to create a campaign that ended in “yes.” The UCLA Labor Center and UCLA Law were key allies that provided expertise and resources, and endorsed the strategy of letting undocumented students’ voices lead the way.

“The beauty of our campaign was that we weren’t looking at this just through the lens of student organizing. We weren’t looking at it just through a lens of the law and immigration and labor law,” Alarcon said. “We were also looking at it through the lens of politics,” aware that the window of opportunity to act on immigrant rights would be impacted by the 2024 U.S. presidential contest.

Lessons learned in their public policy coursework helped shape the campaign, the students said.

“This showcases the incredible policy work our students are engaging in outside of the classroom,” said Kevin Franco, director of student affairs for UCLA Luskin Public Policy. “The work that Carlos and Karely are doing is crucial.”

The student leaders, each of whom came to the United States as young children, had been speaking out on behalf of the undocumented population for years. Their paths first crossed when they were undergraduates, Alarcon at UC Riverside and Amaya at UCLA.

Both were part of the 2021 Dream Summer fellowship program, hosted by the UCLA Labor Center’s Dream Resource Center to empower immigrant youth to address the needs of their community. And both were accepted into the Master of Public Policy program at UCLA Luskin, Amaya in her first year and Alarcon preparing to graduate this week.

At UCLA, they launched the Undocumented Student-Led Network, uniting peers from across the UC campuses, and settled on their top priority: allowing students to work so that they could sustain themselves, pay tuition and continue their education.

“Our message was, ‘Hey, we’re your students. You accepted us into this prestigious university. You put us on your brochures. But I don’t have the same opportunities as my classmates,’” Amaya said.

As a participant in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Alarcon is eligible for a work permit. But Amaya is one of tens of thousands of California students who were shut out of DACA after it was halted during the Trump administration and remains tied up in the courts. As a result, she said, she was unable to accept an offer to work as a graduate student researcher, which would have fully covered her tuition.

The Undocumented Student-Led Network set out to address that inequity, and quickly learned that UCLA Law was already on the case. Its Center for Immigration Law and Policy had developed a novel legal theory arguing that individual states are not bound by the decades-old federal law barring the hiring of undocumented residents.

Twenty-nine respected immigration and constitutional law professors from universities around the country signed a letter endorsing the legal analysis, a pivotal part of the campaign’s multi-pronged approach.

“We realized that it’s going to take a whole strategy, an implementation plan,” Amaya said. “We’re going to organize undocumented students. We’re going to build power. We’re going to continue reaching out to the media to report on this, and we’re going to meet with state legislators, nonprofits, different actors. We need all of our allies to show up for this.”

Their efforts paid off. The October launch of the campaign was accompanied by a New York Times piece laying out the issues. A nonprofit donated $30,000, allowing the team to purchase shirts, banners and other campaign materials aimed at underscoring their message and building community. Momentum grew, leading to the UC Regents’ action on May 18, which made headlines across the country.

The vote means the students’ work will continue. Representatives from the Undocumented Student-Led Network and other student organizations plan to meet regularly with the regents’ working group. And Alarcon and Amaya have high hopes that California will be a model for action that eventually opens the door of opportunity for students beyond its borders.

“This could set a huge precedent for what happens next,” said Amaya.

Study Finds Marginalization of Black and Latino Youth by Gun Violence Prevention Groups

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An article in The Guardian cited research led by UCLA scholars exploring the marginalization of Black and Latino organizers by national gun violence prevention groups. Co-principal investigators Sara Wilf and Taylor Reed, both UCLA Luskin Social Welfare Ph.D. students, worked with a UCLA Luskin-based team, including Professor of Social Welfare Laura Wray-Lake, the faculty advisor on the project. The researchers interviewed young Black and Latino violence prevention advocates who have had experience with gun violence prevention organizations. Findings from the study, representing the last four years, include reports by interviewees of “being tokenized, silencing of racially conscious organizing and expectation to educate white person racism,” according to team members who presented their work at the annual Society for Social Work and Research conference held in Phoenix in January. The study, which is now being peer reviewed, is supported by a grant from the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate and the Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. Social Justice Award.

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Gilens on Building Public Support for Black Reparations

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An Associated Press story about efforts to win public support for reparations made to Black Americans cited Martin Gilens, professor of public policy, social welfare and political science. The article focused on a new philanthropic initiative that is providing financial support to smaller nonprofits advocating for reparations to atone for the nation’s legacy of slavery and systemic racism. Opponents of reparations argue that current taxpayers should not be responsible for damages for historical wrongs. “It’s kind of a foreign concept to Americans, this idea of collective reparations for collective harms,” said Gilens, whose books include “Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America” and “Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy.” Gilens added, however, that support increases when parameters are set that direct potential benefits to specific groups rather than a broad population. 

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Public Policy Again Proves Its Mastery of All Things Trivial

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Back under a tent on the Public Affairs Building’s roof after a three-year pandemic-related displacement, the June 1 battle of useless knowledge and quick-wittedness known as Super Quiz Bowl ended with a team from UCLA Luskin Public Policy again on top of the leader board. Just one point separated the top two groups, as five teams representing two graduate departments and the undergraduate program faced off against each other and a sixth team staffed by, um, staff. Here are the highlights from a post-event email sent to participants by organizer Christian Zarate, events and communications coordinator:

And the winners are … (drumroll please):

Team Competition

3rd Place: Street Smarties (Jin Zhang, Purva Kapshikar, Olivia Arena, Nick Stewart-Bloch, Adam Millard-Ball), Urban Planning

2nd Place: Brain Trust (Molly Hunt, Dinan Guan, Raquel Jackson-Stone, Donald Zelaya, Maura O’Neill), Public Policy

1st Place: Doing it for the Clout – for the second year in a row! (Abhilasha Bhola, Connie Kwong, Selene Betancourt, Jesse Ostroff, Mark Peterson), Public Policy

Hien McKnight won the individual competition this year on behalf of the Dean’s Office.

The winning graduate programs will receive funding for their Grad Night. The undergraduate program will receive funding for its Public Affairs Experiential Learning Internship Support scholarship. Again this year, funding was based on participation: 50% of the Super Quiz Bowl proceeds will be divided among the three departments that participated. Urban Planning took Audience Attendance, with Public Policy winning the other categories of Faculty/Staff/Alumni Attendance and Team Participation.

View photos from the event (and get inspired for next year’s competition) in this Flickr album:

Super Quiz Bowl 2023

 

‘Taking the Raw Edges Off Capitalism’

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Dan Mitchell, UCLA Luskin professor emeritus of public policy, wrote an essay for Zocalo Public Square about efforts in 1930s California to build a social safety net for older Americans, with lessons for today’s debates on aging and “entitlements.” The campaigns, which predated the launch of Social Security, included the Townsend Plan, which called for the federal government to give $200 a month to every American over 60, and the Ham and Eggs initiative, which called on the state of California to give $30 to adults over 50 every Thursday. While these efforts failed, their larger ideas would triumph. “Social Security was not inspired by the Townsend Plan, but it was part of the New Deal’s larger idea of taking the raw edges off capitalism through government intervention,” Mitchell wrote. Advocates for the aging population remained a force in California politics for years, fighting battles that foreshadowed today’s struggle over how to divide the economic pie between younger and older generations.

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An L.A. Story of Power, Influence and Big Personalities

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The Los Angeles Times put a spotlight on the newly released autobiography of Zev Yaroslavsky, a fixture in L.A. civic life for decades and now the director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin. “Zev’s Los Angeles: From Boyle Heights to the Halls of Power” revisits “the period in which Los Angeles became what we know today: big and complex, multiracial, exciting, divided and far deeper than what meets the eye,” writes UCLA Blueprint editor Jim Newton in his review of the book. “Zev’s Los Angeles” recounts Yaroslavsky’s family history, his UCLA student activism and forceful defense of Soviet Jews, and his election to the L.A. City Council at age 26, which spawned a long and consequential career in politics. Newton calls the memoir “a solid history, an insightful analysis of power and a sincere reflection on a life of service,” with fresh insights and behind-the-scenes details about key turning points in the region’s polity.

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