In 2024, as the possibility of a Donald Trump/Joe Biden presidential rematch looks more and more possible, the University of California system will take on a prominent role in national politics, not for cutting edge political science research, legal theories or technology, but as a cash cow.
Donations from the university system could reach $80 million, on par with top funders of politics like billionaires, super PACs and labor unions. Ninety-seven percent of the donations will go to Democrats.
In the 2016 presidential cycle, according to federal records compiled by OpenSecrets.org, University of California staffers gave nearly $5 million to Democrats, nearly 97% of their total political giving. In the 2020 election cycle, giving to Democrats nearly quadrupled to $19.8 million, this time, more than 97% of total giving.
If University of California donations continue on that trajectory, Democrats could receive an unprecedented – and publicly funded – windfall of nearly $80 million dollars.
Critics say the overwhelming partisanship of the University of California system is a sign that the schools have become a political echo chamber where students are more likely to be indoctrinated than educated.
Jennifer Kabbany, editor of The College Fix, which tracks political correctness at universities nationwide, says the donations mask a deeper problem at universities, “The older, classically liberal (professors) who tended to support free speech, academic freedom and intellectual diversity are retiring. They are being replaced with younger, more radical scholars who use the classroom for activism and indoctrination rather than education. These new scholars tend to be far more politically active.” She argues that this transition has turned schools into one-party “echo chambers.”
In 2020, the institutions within the UC system that gave the most were UC San Francisco with $3.8 million, UC Berkeley with $3.1 million and UCLA with $3 million.
The most Republican part of the UC system was UCLA Medical School where 14% of donations, some $7,000 went to the GOP. Many parts of the UC system had no donations to Republicans , among them the International Computer Science Institute and the Berkeley and Hastings law schools.
The top recipients of UC money in 2020 were Joe Biden ($7 million), the Democratic National Committee ($1.7 million), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ($1.0 million) the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ($1.0 million) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren ($0.7 million).
OpenSecrets.org records show that the University of California was Biden’s 10th largest donor, putting it on par with Wall Street’s Paloma Partners and billionaire Jim Simmons. The UC system was well ahead of the Service Employees International Union, the League of Conservation voters and Google’s employees.
