Graduate students at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shut down campus Thursday as part of their ongoing strike for a cost of living adjustment, and all other system campuses saw their own one-day protests. Santa Cruz graduate assistants went on a grade strike in December, then a full labor strike this month. Tensions mounted last week when the university fired or disqualified 80-some grads from spring assistantships for continuing to withhold undergraduate grades. Graduate assistants blocked all entrances to the Santa Cruz campus before dawn, forcing the university to cancel classes, except those offered online. Many faculty and undergraduate supporters joined the picket lines on that campus and across the UC system starting midmorning. As of last week, graduate assistants at the Santa Barbara campus are also on a labor strike for a COLA, and assistants at the Davis campus are on a grade strike. Systemwide, graduate instructors make about $2,400 pre-tax, per month, for nine months out of the year. Strikers say that they need between $1,400 and $1,800 extra per month to be able to secure housing in California's expensive rental markets and have anything left over for utilities and food. The United Auto Workers, with which UC's graduate workers are affiliated, has urged the university to reopen their contract to bargain for a COLA. This week it authorized a systemwide strike vote for April on the grounds that the university has committed unfair labor practices. The university has filed a similar claim against graduate workers. The system said in a statement that it "values all our graduate students, including academic student employees (ASEs) who are essential to UC's teaching mission, supporting the university as teaching assistants, readers and tutors. However, that mission is in jeopardy when ASEs refuse to fulfill their teaching obligations." The system noted that these assistants are striking in violation of their union contract, negotiated in 2018, and said it's "unfortunate that the UAW has resorted to announcing a strike authorization vote as the university continues pursuing opportunities to engage productively with graduate students on housing affordability and other issues."

Ruthless labor exploitation? Generational betrayal? Understanding the job crisis in academia requires a look at recent history.

Some students do feel political pressure from their professors, but few change their views.

A faulty reagent in a test kit and bureaucratic hurdles have slowed testing for the virus that causes COVID-19.

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The incident raises important questions about how institutions handle accusations of harassment that occurred at different universities - particularly in the #MeToo era.

Some publishers feared order making federally funded studies free

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Here is a roundup of key takeaways from our studies of U.S. public opinion about science issues and their effect on society.

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Ivy Anderson and Jeff MacKie-Mason, who co-chair the team overseeing UC's publisher negotiations strategy, have provided the following response to a recent open letter in which a number of commercial and society journal publishers voiced their opposition to a policy, rumored to be under discussion by the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, that would require federally funded research be made freely available to the public immediately upon publication, rather than within 12 months as current policy stipulates.  The University of California believes the public should have access to publicly-funded research, freely and immediately upon publication. We are deeply …

In a stinging rebuke of the Trump administration’s handling of science, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advisory panel has found major shortcomings in the agency’s pursuit of key regulatory rollbacks.