UC Irvine Needs to Open Doors

A loophole in the state’s open-meeting law allows most groups on University of California campuses to do something that virtually no other group spending public money in the state can do--close its doors to the public.

The UC Irvine student newspaper staff learned that distressing fact when it announced its intention to cover an upcoming meeting at which student government will be considering how it will spend $225,000 in student fees. The school paper’s request was rejected by student government officers, who have a legal opinion from the UC general counsel’s office advising them that the state’s open-meeting law doesn’t apply to them. And a recent state appellate court ruling upheld that position.

The legal quirk exists because the state Constitution makes the university an autonomous branch of the state government, so the open-meeting act doesn’t apply to UC. A subsequent constitutional amendment brought the UC Board of Regents under the law, but not the rest of the university.

It’s doubtful that the Legislature meant to exclude UC when it approved its open-meeting laws. What is needed now is for that loophole to be closed by a constitutional amendment.

In the meantime, student government at UCI should comply with the spirit rather than the letter of the law and open its Memorial Day weekend session to the school paper and public.