Last year, the President of the UC system, Michael Drake, instructed the Riverside campus to cut its budget by 8.2%. This cut comes on top of a decades-long history of underfunding UCR and UC Merced, the UC's two majority-minority campuses. The LA Times covered this policy of redlining here (
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-08/uc-grapples-allegations-funding-inequities-racism), but Michael Drake's response has been nil.
With TAs, Tutors, Readers, and Student Researchers preparing to bargain a new contract, now is the time for us to tell Michael Drake to fully fund UCR. Our research, our education, and our students are as important as those at any other UC campus.