Opportunity for All bill passed by State Assembly, awaiting Senate deliberations
The California State Assembly voted to advance a bill that would lift hiring restrictions on undocumented students at all three California higher education systems on May 22, with a 49-2 margin. The bill is now headed to the State Senate, where it will be voted on in early June.
Opportunity for All (O4A) advocates for the lifting of hiring restrictions on undocumented students across all three California public higher education systems — including the University of California, the California State University and California Community Colleges — citing a legal theory by the UCLA Center of Immigration Law and Policy that federal immigration policy does not prohibit state entities from hiring based on legal status. The campaign has gained traction UC-wide, as supporters called on the Board of Regents to set the precedent at the UC. Regents Policy 4407, which would enforce O4A at the UC level, was up for vote at a January 2023 meeting but was tabled for a year.
In April, Assembly Bill 2586, or the Opportunity For All Act, was introduced by Assembly Member David Alvarez and was passed by the Higher Education Committee.
If passed by the Senate, the bill would be implemented by Jan. 6, 2025, and would apply to the UC “unless it is found inapplicable to the University of California and then only to the extent that the Regents of the University of California, by appropriate resolution, make them applicable,” according to the bill.
NASA selects UC San Diego projects for satellite missions to understand climate change impacts
Two UC San Diego faculty-led concept projects have been selected for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) future satellite missions, according to the UC San Diego (UCSD) Guardian. The projects will help scientists understand how climate change is affecting Earth.
The projects are two out of four researcher cohorts from U.S. universities selected by NASA’s Earth System Explorers Program. The program conducts Principal Investigator-led space science expeditions with a “programmatic” scope that can be developed “relatively quickly,” according to NASA’s website. The two cohorts will receive $5 million each to pursue their concept study, the Guardian said.
UCSD Scripps Institute of Oceanography faculty led both proposals. Professor and physical oceanographer Sarah Gille proposed a project to launch a satellite that would measure and deliver wind current outputs to determine how air-sea interactions affect the Earth’s climate. Professor and glaciologist Amanda Fricker proposed a project to measure the topographic structure of sea ice via a satellite to view changes in response to climate change.
Each of the UCSD projects will be given one year to begin their proposals and finalize their satellite structures. After the period, two of the four cohort’s proposals will be selected for a $310 million launch. The projects will launch in 2030 and 2032, according to a NASA press release.
A version of this article appeared on p. 2 of the May 30, 2024 print edition of the Daily Nexus.