An Ideal Case at UCLA
"The University Offers A Lesson On How It Weeds Out Students"
Of course I am only one student, so some might say there's an obvious error in this website's page header and that therefore I'm distorting this lesson offered here by UCLA.
However, there is a useful point found in this page header statement if in fact the university practices what it extols in its lofty
rhetoric on higher education.
Indeed, insofar as professors often proclaim that they, too, are truly
students, we can begin to sharpen the meaning of “students” in this lesson on how the university weeds them out.
In fact it must be immediately clear that the university was able to weed me out as it did only because it has already weeded out
the "student" within some of its own faculty members. In other words, my single termination
can allow us to determine the extent to which these faculty members have
stopped being actual students who hold themselves to the same academic and
ethical principles that UCLA requires of its regular, tuition-paying students.
Over several years, I have contacted numerous UCLA professors
to ask them to examine the facts and circumstances of my termination. Of the few who have carefully examined
these facts, not one has yet been willing to take up this case in the way the university expects from its own students: individuals who pursue the truth through
adherence to facts and through a steadfast commitment to the university’s
fundamental academic and ethical principles. This much should be clear from the documents I have posted
on this website.
Which brings me to the above quotes from Chomsky and
Graeber. They serve as important
reminders that there are students and faculty “who don’t go along,” who do not get weeded
out, and that the university is a place where “there are some amazing,
wonderful scholars.”
This website is an effort to find these individuals, either within the university or in the public that supports this university.
My hope is that these individuals, as the public owning this institution, will then use the documents on this website as an opportunity to put some important questions directly to UCLA:
1. Crucially, how does UCLA ethically throw out a student for an insufficient (sub-3.0) GPA when his academic record shows a GPA higher than 3.0? This is an important question if we're interested in the academic and ethical principles UCLA claims to champion in its global marketing campaigns.
2. How does the university ethically reject its own faculty members' recommendations for a student's immediate reinstatement and a review of the termination decision?
3. Given that after my termination I was told that the university cannot be expected to verify the accuracy of the information it uses in its termination decisions, we must ask: Is it in fact a UCLA policy to terminate students without first checking the accuracy of the information upon which the university is basing its termination decisions? —and is this administrative action ethical?
4. We must also know whether the facts in this case still allow UCLA's policy of no review for all termination decisions based on an insufficient GPA. That is, given UCLA's prominent use of its Statement of Ethical Values & Standards of Ethical Conduct around the UCLA campus and around the world, how does UCLA ethically justify my termination, based on the facts in this case and based on the academic and ethical principles it uses to market itself as a world renowned university?
The public must have clear answers, directly from UCLA, for at least these four important questions if the public wants to understand how this university actually operates when it terminates its students.
Thus, concerned citizens do not put these questions to UCLA on behalf of a single terminated student; rather, the public puts these questions to UCLA as part of its necessary participation in the operations of this public university. Without this public participation, this university is public in name only, and it will therefore continue to terminate its students in the same manner that it terminated me—by dismissing facts, rejecting the recommendations of its own faculty, and by suspending its loudly stated commitment to the academic and ethical principles that remain the necessary foundation for both the university and education itself.